You Can't Make...

...this shit up!

Vancouver police asked to explain huge disparity in ticketing between wealthy, impoverished neighbourhoods

"The VPD handed out 2,050 jaywalking tickets in the Downtown Eastside over the last four years, according to statistics obtained through a Freedom of Information request and released Thursday by two advocacy groups.

But no tickets were issued over the same period in the more tony neighbourhoods of Dunbar/Southlands or Kerrisdale.

The two groups that filed the FOI — Pivot Legal Society and the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users — are demanding police explain the reason for the disparity."

I can think of several reasons, the most significant being that the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver is probably crawling with cops, given the activity that normally goes on there, whereas the other areas mentioned would not be crawling with cops, given the lack of such activity in those regions. And "The Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users"????? (Shakes head.)

In any case, there's plenty of leftie logic on display here:

"“We believe these statistics confirm our fears that city bylaws are not being enforced for reasons of public safety, but to circumvent the constitutional protections in this country against profiling and arbitrary detention,” said Pivot lawyer Douglas King, in a statement.

“The people of this neighbourhood have continually asked for greater pedestrian safety, not increased police enforcement. Giving out 2,000 tickets to people who cannot pay fines in an effort to find the occasional outstanding warrant while ignoring enforcement entirely in richer neighbourhoods is simply unacceptable.”"

No Wonder...

...there's a shortage of affordable housing and skilled tradesmen in this here province:

Sask. grew by 20,000 in just one year

Biggest growth since 1930


1930, huh. Let's see. The CCF, forerunner to the NDP, was created in 1932. That about explains it.

Variations On A Theme

The following is a guest post by Dave in Pa.:

The NDP has just had what they call a leadership debate in Toronto. By published accounts, the eight candidates spent their time agreeing with each other that NDP's "progressivism" and desire to nationalize all of Canada is a good thing. By contrast, those who disagree, particularly the Conservatives, Conservative PM Stephen Harper and Toronto Conservative Mayor Rob Ford are bad things. Good and bad, black and white, a simple moral code and worldview. In all this, they basically mirror the Liberal Party of Canada, which also just had its convention. 

I have a theory that there are many threads of culture, past and present, that, for better or worse, unite what we call Western Civilization. Today, one of the "for worse", is what I call the International Disease of Leftista-ism.  Today's neo-liberalism has nothing in common with Classic Liberalism. The fundamental beliefs of Classic Liberalism included limited government; free enterprise; constitutional government under the rule of law; un-fettered natural freedoms for all individuals, including freedom of speech, thought, religion, assembly and press.

This classic liberalism has nothing in common with today's neo-liberals, who, having toxified the word liberal in so many Westerners' minds, shifted their brand name and now call themselves "progressives".

International modern Western Liberalism, or Neo-Liberalism, strongly share certain attitudes and traits, a Western trans-national phenomenon.  This holds true whether we're talking about British Labourites, Canadian Dippers and Liberals, Australian Labourites or American Democrats.  These habits and traits include an assumption of enlightened intellectual superiority over moderates and conservatives, a secular theological sense of moral superiority over non-Leftistas, and a complete unwillingness to even consider that they may be wrong about something or ought to apologize to their electorates or anyone else about anything. Group-think, Double-think, New-speak saturate their minds.

Let's do some Western.Civilization.Connect.The.Dots  -  This Western "progressive" parallel provincialism, with these identical arrogant attitudes and intellectual and moral certainties are blatantly exemplified in this week's Newsweek cover. With an upward-looking photo of Barack Obama, the cover asks "Why Are Obama's Critics So Dumb?".  In the Liberal Party convention, there's an implied and expressed sense of certainty ("...only their party understands Canada..."). Look back to the 2004 US Presidential election, when Bush beat John Kerry. In shock and mourning the day after Bush was re-elected, a major British Leftista national newspaper, the London Daily Mirror, had a post-election front page, referring to Bush's victorious vote total, proclaimed in massive-sized font, "How can 59,054,087 People Be So Stupid?"

Do you see the variations on a theme here?  Only the progressive minds of the Liberal Party understand Canada.  The eight leadership candidates of the NDP and their audience have no doubt that their "progressive" values and policies are perfect as is and should not be changed. Rather than ask Canadians why they voted Conservative, rather than move the NDP to the Canadian mainstream, the NDP "...want to bring the centre to us", as candidate Mulcair put it. All the correction that's needed is for the foolish Canadian majority who didn't vote NDP to improve their minds, to The NDP Way. The progressive minds at the London Daily Mirror have no doubt the 59 million Bush voters in 2004 were stupid. The progressive minds at Newsweek have no doubt Obama critics today are stupid.

So, there we have it.  The West's "progressives" have The Truth.  While they like to prattle on about "diversity", their faux diversity is superficial.  One may be male, female, white, black, Asian, straight, gay, handicapped, whatever.  All well and good.  But true diversity, diversity of thought, is forbidden.  The "progressive" secular theology is complete, unalterably correct and, if you disagree in any degree, you are stupid and evil. The NDP, Liberals, Democrats, the London Daily Mirror and Newsweek tell us so.

What'd I Tell Ya?

NDP must say bye to its baby boomers

Aging old gray-haired hippies who haven't had a new idea or a clue in their lives need to be given the golden handshake. But who is waiting in the wings, I wonder? Young radicals of today who are the ones most likely to gravitate to the NDP and they are so deeply immersed in leftwing stupidity, they wouldn't be much better. I remain hopeful that the province that gave us agrarian socialism is firmly set on burying it...at least six feet under.

Amnesty International Beclowns Itself Again

Zambia rejects rights group's call to arrest Bush

"Zambia has dismissed an international rights group's call for the arrest on torture charges of former U.S. president George W. Bush, who has been touring Africa to raise awareness about cervical and breast cancer.

“On what basis does Amnesty International want us to arrest President Bush?” state media quoted Foreign Affairs Minister Chishimba Kambwili as saying while Bush, his wife and daughters ended their visit to Zambia on Saturday."

[---]

"Earlier in the week, Amnesty International said it had asked Tanzania, Zambia and Ethiopia to arrest Bush, “someone who has admitted to authorizing waterboarding.” As president, Mr. Bush authorized the interrogation technique that simulates drowning and is viewed as torture by many.

Mr. Bush is warmly remembered across Africa for his U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which since 2003 has provided AIDS treatment to millions on the continent hardest hit by the disease.

Mr. Bush started his Africa tour in Tanzania. He launched his Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon project Friday in Zambia. The project is aimed at expanding the availability of breast care education and cervical cancer screening and treatment."

Oh, but he authorized waterboarding, you know.

Very Interesting!

As I speculated at the end of this post, the Liberal Party and the liberal philosophy may be done for in Canada (and that's not the only place where I've speculated that). Here's a bit of evidence to show the reality out there in Canadian political-party-land.

The flip side of the orange crush

More on the Angus Reid poll that Steve Janke deals with.

And here's something I'd forgotten about (from a commenter at Angry in the Great White North):

"Have the Liberal candidates paid off their debts yet? It will be more difficult as support drops. :)"

Sure hope not.

I Wonder Where They'll Move To?

Obama Yokes Benefit Cuts to New Taxes

"President Barack Obama threatened Monday to veto any bill that cuts Medicare benefits without increasing taxes on corporations or the wealthy, setting his sharpest boundaries yet in negotiations over reducing the federal deficit."

Leftards are so slow to catch on to how (and by whom) jobs and wealth are created. Why do they always have to find out the hard way? Canada's tax structure seems more business friendly. I wonder if some of that capital will migrate north? Still, I'll bet there's even friendlier places. Bye. Bye.

All the more reason to support the Keystone XL Pipeline. He'll need to do something to put Americans back to work, if he wants the Democrats to win any seats in 2012. Just my prediction.

CBC Management Team Meeting

With a few modifications, it suits to a T:

Moving On In Saskatchewan

As we stubble jumpers look forward to a new era, it seems some folks just can't let go of the past.

Yawn.

One More Reason...

...Jason Kenney should be our next PM:

Kenney in mudslinging match with Amnesty International

There was a time when that organization did admirable work. Not any more.

...or John Baird.

Good Place To...

...cut.

Prepare for howling from all the usual suspects.

What they won't tell you, though, is that there are budget cuts across the entire gamut of government departments.

IT services, for example.

"As it stands, government departments and agencies operate their own IT programs. Because of that, there are more than 100 different e-mail systems, more than 300 data centres and more than 3,000 network services operating across the government, Ambrose said."

Sounds good to me.

This Whole "Christian" Thing....

...is as screwed up as they get.

Okay, I so can't let this Norway/Breivik thing go, but it wasn't me that started the "right wing Christian" thing.  I'm a right winger and I'm proud of it, but as far as being Christian is concerned, I'm not a believer, especially not a Bible-thumper, but I do recognize that Christianity was central to the history of the region of the world where my ancestors came from and that its tenets, its trials and tribulations, are responsible for what we call Western Civilization today, and I think that's what motivated Breivik, however sick his method of dealing with his frustration may have been.

The left's and the political class's total abandonment of loyalty to their ancestral roots and to the great achievements that sprang from those roots is, IMHO, very close to treasonous.  It has become very fashionable to pretend that Europe isn't the source of anything worth preserving or celebrating; that extolling things like Western achievements in science, art, music and architecture, great advances in technology and profoundly influential ideas, such as those of the enlightenment and their influence on ideas concerning governance, are nothing but ethnocentric, and therefore dismissible.

But, damn it, ethnocentric as they might be, they are, essentially, unassailable.  There is a reason why Europe was first past the post in the race to explore the entire planet. It could have been the Arabs or the Chinese who set out and conquered the world, as both of those civilizations came close to developing sciences, arts and technology, modes of transportation, and so on, that could have led them to be masters of the planet, but the Europeans did it better and came out on top.

Europe, especially Britain, and her offshoots in the former colonies have inherited a legacy that is something of which we should be proud. After all, and I'm not the first one to note this, people from all those other places still come in droves to our shores, trying to get in, so they can take advantages of the opportunities and gifts, both intellectual and physical, we have to offer. And we do offer them and we do let them in. But we're not going in droves to their shores, longing to get in.  There's a reason for that.

But we won't be able to offer anything, if we keep shooting ourselves in the foot. Breivik saw this. He just chose the most stupid and counter productive method for dealing with it, and now the champions of Western Civilization are left scrambling to distance themselves and justify their positions.

And by the way, did you know the word "Christendom" was commonly used in the Middle Ages to refer to Europe. Long before the concept of the nation state was developed it referred to a political realm, which was characterized by adherence to the Christian faith. The "Church of Rome" was more or less the capital of Christendom, with, perhaps, Constantinople being a significant centre as well, being the centre of Orthodox Christianity. (Constantinople is, of course, modern day Istanbul, which at one time not too long ago, was the capital of the Ottoman Empire, another worthy challenger to European world domination, which likewise failed and disappeared into history to join the Arab Empire and the China of Cheng Ho.)  But neither Islam nor Tao (Chinese philosophy) had what it took to come out on top today, although the land of Tao is certainly waking up, and given a choice, I'd far rather be under China's hegemony than Islam's, thank you very much.

No, Breivik is a sick SOB, but he really did understand what's happening to Western Civilization - to Christendom.  And he took it out on those who he felt were responsible - not Muslims, but "progressive" Europeans. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why he may just become something of a cult hero. Way to go, progressives!

Old Familiar Name Pops Up Amid Chaos and Shattered Glass

Two dead as explosion rocks Norway; Shots fired at youth camp

"NATO member Norway has sometimes in the past been threatened by leaders of al-Qaeda for its involvement in Afghanistan. It has also taken part the NATO bombing of Libya, where Muammar Gaddafi has threatened to strike back in Europe."

[---]

"The blast comes as the Scandinavian country has grappled with a series of homegrown terror plots linked to al-Qaeda, and six years after an uproar over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in neighboring Denmark.

Last week, a Norwegian prosecutor filed terror charges against an Iraqi-born cleric for threatening Norwegian politicians with death if he's deported from the Nordic country.

The indictment centered on statements that Mullah Krekar (Ed. bold added) — the founder of the Kurdish Islamist group Ansar al-Islam — made to various media, including American network NBC.

Danish authorities say they have foiled several terror plots linked to the 2005 newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that triggered protests in Muslim countries.

Last month, a Danish appeals court on Wednesday sentenced a Somali man to 10 years in prison for breaking into the home of a cartoonist who caricatured the Prophet Muhammad."

Mullah Krekar. Where have we heard that name before? Hmmmmm. Let me tell you where. On the bottom of page 39 and continuing on to page 40 of America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It, by Mark Steyn, Krekar is quoted:

"We're the ones who will change you," Norwegian imam Mullah Krekar told the Oslo newspaper Dagbladet in 2006. "Just look at the development within Europe, where the number of Muslims is expanding like mosquitoes. Every Western woman in the EU is producing an average of 1.4 children. Every Muslim woman in the same countries is producing 3.5 children."

[---]

"Our way of thinking will prove more powerful than yours."

What followed the publication of that book, of course, is well known. The Canadian Islamic Conference, reading that passage, attributed Krekar's words to Steyn himself and brought Steyn up before one of our Human Rights Commissions, although people who can actually read knew full well the words were Krekar's, not Steyn's.

But people who can actually read do not include either liberal and Liberal leftards who think we're racist and paranoid and that our Human Rights Commissions serve a useful purpose. Indeed, they do. Useful for liberal leftards. So the subject immediately became the focus of heated debate which has continued ever since.

Krekar's been stirring up shit in Norway, too, of course.

More on Mullah Krekar:

Don't Ask Me...

...how I landed on this one. I'm in the habit of searching for references to Canada on American right-wing blogs, just to see what they're saying about us, or what sort of info sources they use to form their opinions of us, but this one, a joke about Don Cherry, is a beaut:

"DON CHERRY of hockey night in Canada , was asked on a local live radio talk show, just what he thought about the allegations of torture of suspected terrorists. His reply prompted his ejection from the studio, but to thunderous applause from the audience.

HIS STATEMENT:

"If hooking up one raghead terrorist prisoner's testicles to a car battery to get the truth out of the lying little camel shagger will save just one Canadian life, then I have only three things to say:

Red is positive, black is negative, and make sure his nuts are wet"."

Oh, that'll hurt our lefties. I can just hear them howling and see them squirming as they grab their crotches. LOL!!

Proving Once Again....

...how out of touch with reality academe can really be...

Harvard shocked by Canada’s rejection of Ignatieff

"Boston’s chattering classes are struggling with the stunning political defeat of one of Harvard’s most popular academics at the hands of Canadian voters, painting Michael Ignatieff’s historic loss as Liberal leader as a new low in Canadian politics.

A series of editorials and articles published this week in the Harvard Crimson, Boston Globe and elsewhere have blamed Canadians for being close-minded and anti-American when they handed Mr. Ignatieff and the Liberals the party’s worst defeat in history."

or maybe it's just Boston:

"“Harvard sees itself as the centre of the universe, so I’m sure it felt it very deeply,” said Graham Wilson, chair of Boston University’s department of political science."

It's pathetic. Even the excuses given miss the mark:

"In a front page article, The Boston Globe said the main reason for the Liberal collapse was that Mr. Ignatieff — the former director Harvard’s Carr Center of Human Rights Policy and an expert on international military interventions — had views on the Canadian mission in Afghanistan that had pushed “war-weary voters toward the more left-leaning New Democratic Party.”

The paper’s editorialists noted with some disbelief that Canadian politics had become “surprisingly caustic” and described the “sadness and indignation” his former Harvard colleagues felt at seeing that Conservative attack ads painting Mr. Ignatieff as a foreign Ivy League elitist had played so well with Canadian voters."

Look, people, Western Canada, the most America-friendly part of the country, always rejects Liberals. It was the Liberal Party of Canada that decided to parachute Iggy into the leadership position, by-passing the wishes of the rank and file membership. That sort of hubris doesn't go well in most of Canada, never mind just Western Canada.

And besides, Iggy was out of touch with Canada's political landscape. It doesn't matter what country he had been in, he wasn't here and there are numerous niggling little details of which he was obviously ignorant that would have translated into disaster for Canada had he been Prime Minister.

We tend not elect parties based on their foreign policy stance.  We're more concerned with bread and butter issues right here at home, and we wanted someone who deeply and intimately understands what those are.  All politics is local, right?

And - and this is a big one - I really think the Liberal Party is over. It is elitist. People of the Liberal persuasion have been preaching to us and looking down their snobbish noses at us for decades and we're sick of being treated like plebeians. So we banished them. Hopefully for good.

Oh, and we take great delight in the internal melt-down, squabbling and finger pointing in the Liberal ranks taking place now, as if to say, "how could this possibly have happened". Kinda proves our point.

Oh. And does this not also say something about the attitude so prevalent amongst liberal arts faculties in North American universities?  Time for an overhaul in that arena, as well.

Perhaps the Boston Globe and the Harvard Illuminati can just dismiss this as Canada's version of the Tea Party movement.

PS: American Thinker has taken note. The smirking is palpable.

It's Not Just Young People...

...who participate in "Vote mobs". It's also ancient, wrinkly old tokers.

Toke and Vote

Oh. And they don't like Harper either. Geeze. All those opposition parties get the best voters. It's not fair.

Keep It Up, Justin!

Every time you open your mouth, it helps us a bit more.

And it doesn't matter if you apologize afterwards. The truth about the Liberal Party of Canada has been laid bare.

What is it with this organization? They find themselves out of power, which, of course, goes against the natural order of things, so they think that importing and then anointing an elitist snob to the leadership position, or touting out old politically correct garbage from thirty-five years ago will get them back in power???

Oh well. Who am I to complain. Keep it up, Justin!

Oh. And CBC, where are you? Oh. Here we are. Helping him recover.

From the Science and Religion File

Saudi Arabia's war between god and archaeology

"For decades, Saudi Arabia's powerful clerics have waged a bitter battle against pagan faiths, idol worship, heresy, alcohol – and archaeology."

[---]

"News that David Kennedy, an Australian scholar, has succeeded in identifying almost 2,000 unexplored archaeological sites using Google Earth has focused attention on the wages of that battle: the destruction of Saudi Arabia's own heritage"

[---]

"The Kingdom's ultraconservative clerics believe that the veneration of ancient sites associated with the Prophet Mohammad and his family is heretical, and want potential shrines obliterated.

In October last year, a Saudi clerical body was reported to have renewed long-standing calls for the demolition of several historic Islamic sites – including the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad and the grave of his mother.

Fears that archaeology could cast light on Saudi Arabia's pre-Islamic past also led them to campaign against excavations."

[---]

"Najran, where an ancient Christian kingdom was overrun by the Jewish king Dhu Nawas a century before the Prophet Muhammad's birth in the 7th century CE, has yielded a treasure trove of ancient stone inscriptions.

There have also been significant finds at Jurash, overlooking the Red Sea, where US archaeologists have excavated new evidence on the trading routes which once ran across the region.

Prince Sultan Bin Salman, the first Saudi Arabian astronaut, played a key rule in easing up restrictions on archaeology, as head of the Kingdom's commission for tourism and antiquities.

Museums in the Kingdom have now begun displaying finds from these sites – including nudes of Hercules and Apollo, cast in bronze. Female figurines, however, are still not on display.

However, there still seem to be limits to the kingdom's tolerance of archaeology – particularly when issues of faith are touched on. Public access to an ancient church discovered by tourists in 1986, for example, is still barred."

Hmmmmm. Similar to certain issues faced by archaeologists in North America. How many times in the past thirty years have Aboriginal people claimed that certain sites should not be excavated, citing spiritual beliefs and customs as the reason, when in fact the real reason is that archaeologists might chance upon strong evidence that disproves their absurd claim that they were "put here by the creator". Funny how religious zealots get a pass provided they aren't of the Christian variety.

Well, This is a Good Way to End the Day

Appeal up in smoke, as court says pot’s no sacrament

"The Hamilton-based Church of the Universe – a group that uses marijuana as a religious sacrament — won’t be sparking up with the blessings of the court.

The Church, through its Toronto G13 mission, lost its bid Monday to be exempt from Canada’s pot laws.

It’s the latest defeat the church has had before the courts, including appeals to the Supreme Court of Canada on issues regarding its use of pot and other issues.

Last year, the federal court declined to hear appeals regarding the 2007 marijuana trafficking convictions against church founders Walter Tucker and Michael Baldasaro. In 1992, the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal by Tucker and his wife, Joanne, of a 1989 provincial court ruling that committed them for trial on drug charges.

Baldasaro, who ran for Hamilton mayor last year, was dismayed by the latest ruling, but said it won’t change their views. The judge said she found church members sincere in their use of pot but she did not think it was possible to create a workable religious exemption."

Where are Cheech and Chong when ya need 'em?

OOPS!!

UPDATE: 2-million year old 'mummy-trees' reveal harsh climate

This is precious:

"His group's discovery in Ellesmere Island National Park represents the northernmost mummified forest site in Canada."

Do you folks know how far north Ellesmere Island is???

"The site sits in an upper Arctic region that changed to a scrubby, treeless landscape about 2 million years ago, and so researchers know the mummified trees must be at least that old. There are also no signs of the previously common Metasequoia redwood trees that vanished in the area around 10 million years ago, which gives the tree mummies an upper age limit."

================================
Mumified forest discovered in Arctic Circle

Explain that one, AGW freaks.

You still haven't properly accounted for your spin of this one, short of considering it weird.

Weirdos.

I wonder how many of you will show up for the next chapter of Copenhagen-Cancun? Canada should live up to its reputation and boycott the thing, or better yet, show up with bottled water from freshly melted glaciers - with bark in it.

In other news, this is cool:

Winter solstice to coincide with lunar eclipse for the first time in 456 years.

How much do you want to bet there will be heavy cloud cover caused by all those melting glaciers and ice caps?

Trivia moment: The last time this happened, Sir Walter Raleigh was two years old - and after nine days on the throne, Lady Jane Grey was executed. I have a book that records important events that took place each year/era for the past seven millenia. I promise none of those Arctic trees were used to produce the paper upon which it was printed. /snark

Science has come a long way since then, until climate change freaks took over. Woe betide Western Civilization and save us from these progressives against progress.

I've written about the Canadian Arctic before, but this is my all time favourite. Note the passage quoted from explorer Samuel Hearne's journal.

""I have observed during my several journeys in those parts that all the way to the north of Seal River the edge of the wood is faced with old withered stumps, and trees which have been flown (sic) down by the wind….Those blasted trees are found in some parts extend to a distance of twenty miles from the living woods, and detached patches of them are much farther off; which is proof that the cold has been increasing in these parts for some ages. Indeed some of the older Northern Indians have assured me that they have heard their fathers and grandfathers say, they remembered the greatest part of those places where the trees are now blasted and dead, in a flourishing state.""

Damn it. Next thing you know, those AGW freaks will be out to destroy the Hudson's Bay Company archives.

Related.