The Lasso of Truth

We are finally closing on our new house, next month, and I've just come across the perfect housewarming gift...

The only question I have is...can you commission one to look like someone in particular..?

Just askin'...

Further to my comments here, this is a perfect example of what I was talking about...

A Saudi Arabian court sentenced a Montrealer to death yesterday for the alleged killing last year of a young man in a schoolyard brawl.

Mohamed Kohail, 23, of Dollard des Ormeaux, was sentenced to be executed by having his head chopped off with a sword.  [..]

"Everybody was astonished at this verdict because a couple of days ago, some of the judges told us there was no way this could go to a death sentence," [..]

The court refused to hear all of the defence witnesses, he said.

"Our witnesses confirmed that the boys didn't even hit the boy who died," he said.

"There were nine hearings in total and only one time was the lawyer for Mohamed and his friend allowed in the courtroom; not even Mohamed's father, Ali (was allowed in)."

An autopsy showed the victim died from bleeding to the bladder complicated by a weak heart.

Just remember this the next time a moral equivocator tells you all cultures are equal.  They're not.  Ours is better and unfortunately, the Kohail family found that out way too late.  If they ever make it out of there, do you think they will ever want to go back to the homeland, again? 

Conservative pal, Gerry Nicholls sent this the other day.  I guess he is worried about Mikey's safety ;)

Lucky for all of us, Mikey is the kind of man who does not require a rock'em sock'em left cross to stay in line. 

But a healthy fear is still always useful...take note, Mikey...

...and I have never purported to run a family-friendly site, here.  Yet some loser trying to flame me on another loser's site made the implication that I am somehow diminished as a good parent, because I post "porn" on my site.  I guess it depends on what your definition of porn is.  For instance, my idea of porn involves a lot more nudity, an excessive amount of projectile fluid and a soundtrack of snarls and slurping noises.  Or it at least involves a nipple or two.  I thought the progressive leftards were more enlightened than us knuckle-draggers, about the artistic beauty of the nude form and the medieval blase-ness of being concerned about some racy photos.  So for those of you who may be confused about the nature of this site, the presence of toons does not denote a fitness for consumption by children and those little round things under her chin are not for breastfeeding.  I do a lot of things I wouldn't do in front of my kids.  This blog is only one of them.  But much like I don't invite them into the bedroom to witness the nightly humping ritual, I don't show them the pinups.  I hope this clears things up for the Poly-Anna who was so concerned...

~ A headline which -- even in my wildest imagination -- I never thought I'd see:  Clinton faces Kenya cattle fine over Obama photo

~ David Thompson rehashes the issue of whether a responsible society should knowingly deport suspected criminals who may face torture or execution...

One might, for instance, take the view that a person of foreign citizenship convicted of serious crimes, whether they include terrorism or not, has broken a fundamental covenant with the host society. And thus, one might argue, the protections extended to visitors by that society are forfeit.

I'll go one further.  A society which values justice and the rule of law is shirking the responsibilities inherent with those values, when it makes an effort to intervene or circumvent justice on behalf an individual who has violated them, just because the punishment is more heavy-handed than it condones.  Speaking of which...

~ And in other news...A rude awakening.  Or maybe an impromptu interpretive dance routine...

~ As the Canadian taxpayer prepares to bend over a little further... "Nova Scotia Young Liberals think the province should foot the bill for sex-change operations."  Next we'll be paying for liposuction and boob jobs.  I would gladly part with the costs to remove their heads from their asses, though.

~ Theo posts some real porn.  I'm in!

~ "...there is even an International Sex Workers Union in the UK but I wouldn't have any objection to members of that union since at least they freely admit that they really do suck at their work."

Happy weekend!

There is an insidious kind of spiteful impotence, which some of the less savoury social parasites will resort to, when it becomes clear they cannot win a discussion based on the merits of their argument.  It involves the use of children, as cudgels, with which to silence opposition under threat.  Sometimes they simply use their own hapless children as shields from criticism, and some take the more direct route of using other people's children as hostages, threatening their security as a measure to silence criticism.

I left a comment, recommending Richard report this threat to the police.  I also suggest he take the proactive measure of informing the school board and his children's schools, himself, but that may be lending more credit than is warranted, to the festering scab who has lobbed the threat.

One thing is for sure...aside from calling the cops, I would deploy a wooden baseball bat, a set of industrial crimping shears and a fierce, relentless rage on anyone who dared consider using my children as justifiable tools by which to gag me.

What is the reward we, as a society, get for this much lauded compassion we are all expected to have, for drug addicts, bums and roaming bands of unruly thugs in "tent cities"?

"Today in Vancouver there are perhaps thousands living on the streets and in the parks. They sleep everywhere -- even in the doorways of the courthouse and police station. Public areas are their bathrooms and garbage disposal facilities. They subsist on inadequate income assistance, food lineups and public handouts, and low-level crime.

"Society created this situation. Law-abiding citizens condone it and it has become the expectation of those like Darcy Jones. In fact it is more than an expectation; it is viewed as an entitlement -- the public are expected to respond favourably to silly justifications for demanding money such as 'squeegee' car windshield [washers] or doing pushups on the street.

"It is not surprising that some street people have taken the next step of physically enforcing their right to this support. We have a name for it -- aggressive panhandling,"

Yet still, 2 years less a day under house arrest is the best we can do, for a man who assaulted and robbed an elderly man who regularly gave him money outside his church each week.  The biggest irony being that the house arrest will be served in the very church where the assault occurred and at which the victim attends services.

Ray Bradbury couldn't even make up this kind of dystopian reality.

While the Hollywood social-conscience peddlers monopolize a staggering score of carbon-heavy resources, to engage in their vacuous annual vanity-fest, an exploitive, capitalist corporate empire saves the lives of 7 people without concern for cost and without fanfare.

Being tagged by the traffic behemoth of the Canadian blogosphere, the pressure is on to come up with something good.  Lucky for me, there is no shortage of quirky ticks and odd habits to chose from...

1. I love to sing...and I suck at singing.  I probably really suck.  But on a daily basis, my despondent coworkers are subjected to a serenade which can run the gamut from Frank Sinatra to The Beastie Boys to Morrissey or The Killers.  What never changes, is the off-key timber and careless enthusiasm of my accompaniment.

2. I have a Spongebob collection that would put most 6-year-olds to shame, including 3 sets of jammies, giant slippers, 5 seasons on DVD and a Spongebob Frankenstein sleep toy that scares my kids.

3. I will wear heels with everything (except my jammies).  I cannot wear flat shoes for more than brief spurts without suffering horrible leg and back pain.  The heels need to be at least 3 inches and even in the dead of winter, I can be seen vaulting snowbanks in open toes.

4. I probably own more lingerie than I do actual clothes.  My closet is certain to confuse and/or cause permanent emotional damage to most of my children -- as does the industrial ring clamp in the ceiling.

5. I was once escorted by a machine-gun wielding police officer, out of the Sofia airport, in Bulgaria.

6. In the abstract dichotomy of my personality, it would not be out of character for me to be the only girl in a feather boa at a Die Hard movie.  I'd also be quite pleased to go from mudding on an ATV, to primping up in sequins and false eyelashes in the same day.

I've done this one before here and again, here.  Most of those still apply (including the men's underwear thing) but I guess as I have gotten older, I have become inured to the quirkiness of most of my habits -- and Mikey doesn't think anything I do is odd...

I'm not going to tag anyone else, mainly because Kate already tagged almost everyone I know ;)  But feel free to share a few of your own.

By the logic in this case, if I had say, hemorrhoids, I should be entitled to drop my skivvies in the middle of a crowded restaurant, pull out my prescription suppositories and slip in a pill, so to speak.

I hate to be indelicate but after all, it is for medicinal purposes.

Fortunately for my fellow dining patrons, I choose to exercise some courtesy and regard for others, in the administration of my medical treatments.

YOU FIRST.

Liberal human rights critic Irwin Cotler...

"I think he should be brought back here, and the ideal would be for him to enter into a framework of social and physical rehabilitation as befits what should be done for child soldiers, where he could have a religious and cultural support system."

...wants the Canadian government to intervene on behalf of grenade-tossing, soldier-murdering cockroach Omar Khadr.

And if he came back to Canada, this is the religious and cultural support system he would be coming back to.

Khadr's father once called Canada "a dirty swamp", meanwhile his family uses all the resources of a free and democratic society, to live off the Canadian taxpayers, like parasites.

The Liberals have never met a terrorist they didn't like and they want us to fight to get this one back.

Goes to the CBC

If her father had been the culprit, the word murder would have made it in there.

***

The Star does better with the headline, but it only takes 6 brief paragraphs for them to mention post-partum depression -- even though there is currently no evidence this was even a factor.

From one of the architects of the madness...

...Alan Borovoy, the general counsel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. He pointed out that as he and others toiled to establish Canada's first human rights commission "nobody ever foresaw this instrument being used to muzzle the expression of opinion." He says he worked to establish human rights laws primarily to stop discriminatory actions that denied housing or a job to a person based solely on their sex, race or other characteristic. "We didn't even fathom that this would be used this way and in fact there were then no provisions in human rights statutes comparable to the one that's been used here," he said, referring to Alberta.

[..]

Borovoy says speech that denies people equality is already well covered by the act and hate speech is covered by the Criminal Code. Borovoy therefore has a solution to restore human rights to Alberta's human rights commission.

"I think the removal of this section is necessary, but it may well not be sufficient," he warned. "I think there's no substitute -- as with so many other things -- for a lot of vigilance at the citizen level."

All due respect to Mr. Borovoy, but this is somewhat like being tossed down, raped and beaten -- prison-style -- and then having the rapist turn on his way out to say "you'd better put something on that".

Thanks for your concern.  Now who will save us from the Saviours?

It's not every day you get to commemorate the retirement of a thuggish tyrant who continued to rule a brutal dictatorship for 537 days after his well-deserved and much denied death.  In light of this blissful occasion, it seems only appropriate to custom tailor this week's pinup, to the man with a face only Monica Lewinsky could love...

~ Strolling down memory lane, my love affair with the idea of Castro tits-up goes way back to the old blog, with my Ruminations on the Cuban Prison...

The fact that the world has tolerated a fascist dictator having control of an entire country for 46 years, is shameful.  Those who cheered when the Berlin Wall came down, could only do so while averting their eyes from the continuing injustice occurring in the name of the same twisted ideology, on the other side of the world.

~ He also got honorable mention in my discussion on The Suffering of Innocents...

Cuba is a perfect example of what an utter ethical failure, the policy of containment truly is.

For decades, Fidel Castro has been little more than a blusterer on the sidelines.  No conceivable threat of any kind, to western democracy.  But for our complacency, the innocent people of Cuba have been suffering the worst forms of oppression and degradation, under a brutal dictatorship.  Isolating Fidel Castro also served to isolate the citizens who suffer under him.  Our claim to success and victory is a perverted presumption of moral certitude that we never earned.  Their suffering,  mocks our so-called success as the hollow victory it is.  We enjoy prosperity as a reward for our inaction then, and as a consequence we have been aptly determined to be weak and decadent.  Gutless and unwilling to resort to violent rebellion against that which we find intolerable.  So while we claim to be the moral beacons of society, we have left the citizens of Cuba condemned to animalistic degradation.  Further to that, our unwillingness to rectify the injustice of our inaction has over the years, provided inspiration and solidarity among a diverse array of oppressive regimes - who are now banding together to provide a network of dictatorial support to each other.  A coalition of the willing-to-do-anything-to-stay-in-power, so to speak.

~ Of course, not everyone feels that the long-standing tolerance of a brutal dictator in the sphere of civilized society, is a shameful stain on our collective conscience.  Some in fact, can barely contain their gleeful worship of a murderous oppressor...  "I grew up knowing that Fidel Castro had a special place among my family's friends. We had a picture of him at home: a great big man with a beard who wore military fatigues and held my baby brother Michel in his arms."  ...Then again, I never considered the Trudeau family to be "polite company", anyway.

~ The Democracy Project makes a few observations on the supreme leader's tendency to be either disdainful or oblivious to the suffering of those around him and the sickening display of misplaced priorities of those bewitched by his self-absorbed company...  "Many of our diplomats, businessmen and commentators need to get the morality and priority of their manners straight. Then, at least, our enemies will be more cognizant of who and how they toast, or torture."

~ And the MSM which, in the context of the current war, has been obsessed with body count, grandly catalogs a list of landmarks and accomplishments of a 49-year dictatorship, without once referring to the festering heap of murdered dissidents, starved children and unfortunate denizens of this Utopian paradise.

For those of us who have never been fond of hateful charlatans who perpetrate massive and bloody frauds on captive subjects, with the institution of a long-failed nihilistic ideology of greed and apathy, it will be a relief to think that little brother Raul doesn't have a hope in hell of holding power like his meaner big brother.  We can only hope it won't be too long before a new and freer revolution takes his place.  Until then...at least we can stop pretending that Castro's fetid corpse isn't stinking up the Presidential Palace.

Ciao, Commandant...here's hoping you wind up one of those 72 virgins we hear so much about.

"The most popular Prime Minister in the history of polling" may need a Proctologist to remove this parasite.

And how does The Urinal King reconcile the fact that his biggest hero was given the same honor as "Jews are a disease" Ahenakew?  Does his much-recycled guilt by association argument work now?

Maybe I could use The Force, to get one.  Or if that fails, dress up like Princess Leia "slave girl"...

h/t

Kathy Shaidle points out some of the nauseating apologia in Dan Hill's recent Maclean's opus, mimicking some of the complaints Mikey and I had discussed, after we both read it.

It is one parent's account of the challenging and nearly fatal conflict surrounding his mixed-race son's coming of age and descent into thug worship, in Toronto's east end.

The funny thing about this piece is, how many times he alludes to the big elephant in the room, without ever actually overtly acknowledging it...

He was 13, and gradually pulling away from his Caucasian friends, who were baffled by his abrupt and seemingly inexplicable desire to embrace the black side of his heritage.

And his son's cool new black friends exposed his family to theft, legal perils and death threats.  All the while, dad spent countless hours, wringing his hands over what could have possibly gone wrong without ever once realizing that perhaps those long trips away from home and oblivious acceptance of thugs into his home when he was there, created an atmosphere where his family was in danger.  But the social snob refused to move his family out of harm's way.

British journalists want to tell you who to vote for...

"Science has long faced an uphill battle for recognition in Canada, but the slope became steeper when the Conservative government was elected in 2006," the journal said in an editorial titled "Science in Retreat."

The editorial blasts the government's decision to close the office of national science advisor, a move confirmed last month by Industry Canada. The office offers advice on global science and technology issues and how government can better fund and support Canadian science.

"Concerns can only be enhanced by the government’s manifest disregard for science," says the journal.

"Since Prime Minister Stephen Harper came to power, his government has been skeptical of the science on climate change and has backed away from Canada’s Kyoto commitment.

In a world where scientists regard skepticism as tantamount to heresy, such unsavory opinion tends to elicit harsh criticism in full absence of logic or reason.  It won't be long before they create a Scarlet Letter for it.

Some days, vigilante justice takes on a shiny new appeal...

Child protection advocates who fight for the protection of our most vulnerable are outraged that a notorious pedophile is once again free to walk the streets of Toronto, despite the fact that he seems destined to re-offend.

And even more troubling, they say, is that the public is not even allowed to know if this sexual predator with an appetite for kids is living in their neighbourhood.

[..]

Spencer, 30, was released from prison yesterday after serving the full length of a 21/2-year sentence imposed after he pleaded guilty to possessing and distributing child porn in 2005.

Police say he has been designated a "high-risk to re-offend"

[..]

Spencer has served time for sex assaults and child pornography related offences that occurred between 1995 and 2005 and usually involved boys aged 8 to 14. He has also served time for his role in child-sex rings known as The Company and The Family, which enabled pedophiles to share images of child sex abuse and tips on luring.

Once again, it is up to parents and citizens to guard their own children against a "high-risk offender" because the justice system can't be bothered.

And if this animal somehow makes it under the wheels of my car, do you think I might get more than the 2-1/2 years he got, for sexually exploiting children?

Apparently, gay activism is a community service...

The Rev. Dr. Brent Hawkes, gay activist and senior pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto, will be invested as a member of the Order of Canada on Friday, February 22, 2008.

The Order of Canada is Canada's highest civilian honour.  [..]

"To my knowledge, Rev. Dr. Hawkes, is the only person to receive their country's highest honour in recognition of their gay activism," said Douglas Elliott, founding president of the International Lesbian and Gay Law Association.

The article also mentions he is the recipient of the YMCA Peace Medal...and suddenly, I'm picturing the good reverend dressed as a construction worker.

In this age of net-savvy pedophiles and high-tech exploitation rackets, it would seem only natural to harvest the vital statistics of every child in the country, for storage on a centrally located database, accessable by a full slate of government agencies...

The government faces calls to scrap a database containing the details of every child in England after a report said it could never be secure.

[..]

It will list the name, address and date of birth of every child in England and contact details for their parents, doctors and schools.

Every child will be given a "unique identifying number".

After all...what on Earth could go wrong?

"I wish we still had the death penalty"

Which brings to mind a bumper sticker Mikey once saw and related to me.  It vapidly declared...

"An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind"

...except of course, for those of us who can manage to restrain ourselves from poking eyes out, one would think.

A section of Toronto's downtown core is ablaze as firefighters struggle to get a six-alarm fire on Queen Street under control.

"It looks like 623, 625 and 627 Queen St. have collapsed,"

If the fire made it to #651, Mikey and I can kiss future Fetish Night excursions goodbye.

Or find another venue.

Or just stay home...

I've got the perfect new "human rights" case for Super-Dick Warman and Warren Kinsella to take the lead on because God knows, their shit doesn't stink...right?

A BRITISH woman who said she suffered cruel jibes from work colleagues because of her chronic flatulence has lost a discrimination claim.

Sounds like a job for the Nazi-hunter and his urinal-inspecting, happy-snapper sidekick!  Right up their alley...so to speak...

h/t

Dancing with the Russian Bear

Cartoon courtesy of Peter Brooks.

On the one hand, I am pleased to hear that our border guards are taking measures to seriously impose our border rules -- and I'm not overly sympathetic to anyone who has a criminal record. 

However, I do believe it is somewhat contradictory to crack down on a tourist with a 20-year-old driving infraction, while our 2 national opposition parties lobby like gangbusters, to get a murderous terrorist back.

I'd tell you which I'd prefer to make an exception for.

Happy President's Day, to all my American friends!  This pinup is dedicated jointly, to you and my good friend Dalton McGuinty, who saw fit to give me the day off, too.  So I'll be spending the ambiguous "Family Day", exactly as I was meant to...lounging around the house in my jammies, playing Chinese Checkers with my kids and going over wedding plans with my Mom, over dinner.

~ Questions abound when 3 right feet wash up on shore. 

~ I hate subtitles.  There are a few times I have made an exception...Pan's Labyrinth being the most recent.  But I may have to brave them again, for Persepolis.

~ Global warming rears it's ugly head in Greece and Greenland.  Let the hand-wringing begin.

~ Elections Canada is opening an investigation of an anti-Kyoto group which ran a campaign in the last election.  I hope, while they're at it, they look into the pro-Kyoto camp, too...but I won't hold my breath.

~ And I am pleased to report that The Hatemongers are back, with some advice for why Hillary should support Obama for President.

~ Jay Tea has advice for the current President, on how to fix the budget (some valuable suggestions we could use up here, too)

Now, I'm headed for a bubble bath and sumptuous lunch, after I break up the raucous game of Axis & Allies going on in the kitchen.  If you have the day off, enjoy it.  If not...well, you're reading blogs, so you're not working anyway!

Mohamed al Fayed tells inquest of the 'Nazi racist Duke'...

he believes Diana’s killing was ordered because the royal family did not want the mother of the future king having a child with a Muslim businessman.

Aside from the regular spectacle of Prince Charles' suck-up love affair with all things Muslim, it would seem that one of the world's richest men, the patriarch of a leading international empire, is being a tad disingenuous when he adopts the persecuted, oppressed Muslim role.

And I have no idea which restrooms he is frequenting, but it seems he and Warren Kinsella are drinking from the same "Nazis are everywhere" urinal.

...despaired this week that it all is getting so "ugly."

Since you're determined to misrepresent what I said, I will clarify.  The exact quote was this...

Really.  All insults aside...you’re losing it, and it’s getting publicly ugly.  Have a latte and take a break.

And since you missed it, the thing that is getting ugly is your public breakdown -- your determination to be a blogospheric laughingstock and your misplaced indignation, peppered with a perpetual propensity to misrepresent the words and views of everyone who dares disagree with you.

btw...I look forward to when you go through this much trouble to post the death threats being issued on a daily basis, from your Muslim pals who are trying so hard to shut us up.  Or maybe you don't get those.  If need be, you can use some of mine.

The last week has been oddly surreal around this blog.  Between getting slagged by a useless twit, fawned over by some very complimentary readers and bombarded with an enormous slew of traffic from the big dogs of the Canadian blogosphere, I can't figure out how I'm going to top it.  But I figured showing some sultry cheesecake probably couldn't hurt...

~ Most of my American readers are probably unaware that the province of Quebec has something called the Office quebecois de la langue francaise whose sole function is to monitor and police all discourse in the province, to ensure French predominates in all transactions.  Basically, they harass anyone with the audacity to acknowledge the existence of the other official language of this country (and most of the world) -- namely English.  Who would find a need for such an entity, with all the powers of bureaucratic prosecution?  Well, mealy-mouthed Quebecois whiners like this do...  "A woman warns the owner of a Quebec pet store she might get in touch with language authorities because Peekaboo, the parrot she wanted to buy, didn't speak French."  Believe me...I wish I was joking.

~ Please let the door hit ya...Former Nazi war criminal finally tossed from the country.  It only took 57 years of citizenship and 6 years of extradition hearings.  Crikey, this is getting embarrassing.

~ While we're on the topic of useless losers...this one has started a Facebook group to apologize to Muslims, for the insult they suffered at the hands of a few Danish cartoonists.  No word yet, on when those same Muslims will start a Facebook group to apologize for torching embassies, rioting en masse, engaging in murderous plotting and suing every infidel in sight.

~ If a man infected with HIV, who knowingly and willfully engages in unprotected sex with 15 separate people, with the full intention of infecting as many as possible (5, so far) is not a dangerous offender, really...who is?

~ At our house, this is what we like to call a target-rich envronment.  And doesn't the dude in the picture look like an extra from the "Planet of the Apes" films?

Happy Weekend, folks!