Category: Canada

Okay; it’s about time. After a few weeks of snoozefesting, things are finally starting to show some signs of life in the race to replace Joe Bananas in London North Centre. Things are getting kinda crowded around here, too. With the Tories, Dippers and Granola Grinders all trotting out bigwig to parade about, it’s getting downright windy in the Forest City.

Federal Justice Minister Vic Toews popped in to toot the law-and-order horn with Dianne Haskett (are the Librano$ even aware of that instrument? Oh, yeah; Adscam…). Haskett, true to her word, has waited until all the municipal madness has passed before kicking her campaign into high gear.
Interim Grit poohbah Bill Graham swooped in to join Glen Pearson in the caterwauling about how big, bad, creepycrawly Tory Dianne is “on the extreme right of a party that is already to the extreme right.” Be afraid now, little sheep. Be very afraid.

Meanwhile, to no one’s surprise, Treehugger Liz May’s political sugar daddy turns out to be none other than Garth Nader himself. The Baron of Blab will be in town today to try to drum up votes for the Gaia Gang. Forget it Garth; these aren’t the droids you’re looking for.

To give a little credit where it’s due, both Haskett and May have wrinkled their noses at the fracas over Dave “DOH!” Burghardt’s recent political self-immolation:

Haskett: “I’m sorry, I’m not going to jump into the fray.“

May: “Everyone has told me Glen Pearson is a fine human being. Let’s move on, let’s focus on the issues.“

As for Burghardt himself, he has wasted no time at all firing off a letter to the editor, published in today’s Freeps, that could just as easily have began with “quia peccavi; nimis cogitatione, verbo et opere: mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa:“

Pearson ex-staffer makes public apology for distasteful blog

I am truly sorry for a number of things I wrote on a personal blog. Some of the things I wrote cannot be excused. I take full responsibility for any pain I have caused.

In particular, comments made about the Muslim community were born out of my own ignorance. I continue to learn more about the Islamic faith and gain a great appreciation of its desire for peace.

Other comments about the Liberal party, same-sex marriage and women’s right to vote were meant tongue in cheek. For crossing the line into rudeness and cruelty, I apologize. I was insensitive and I was wrong.

I have stopped posting to the website. I realized that my voice was becoming just another angry voice. The world doesn’t need anymore angry voices.

My indiscretions are my own and should in no way reflect on anyone other than me.

David Burghardt

London

I guess nobody ever bothered to tell ol’ Dave that there isn’t much point in falling on your sword when somebody else has already stuck you in the backside with it.

And now, some links:

The Freeps
All-candidates meeting set for tomorrow
Intrigue in cyberspace
Campaign trail gets crowded
Cabinet minister stumps for Haskett
CAMPAIGN NOTEBOOK

Well, it’s been an interesting day, hasn’t it? If you haven’t heard already, neither the Tories, nor the Dippers, nor anyone else needed to do anything to kablooie the wheels off Librano Glen Pearson’s MP-wannabe bandwagon; HypoGrit Dave Burghardt did it for them. The Dippers were so ecstatic about it, they could barely contain themselves and promptly fired off a lovely indignant and snotty memo to everyone that they could spam with it.

Meanwhile, over at the Tory camp, John Q. Londoner is still waiting to hear what’s on Dianne’s mind (but then again, I haven’t been home to check my email yet)… Okay, time for the links:

The Freeps
Blog broadsides Liberal campaign
‘Bringing down a Liberal’

Vancouver Sun
Liberal worker in hot water over blog

Globe & Mail
Liberal candidate’s aide steps down for on-line remarks about women, gays
In the Forest City, two kinds of Tories sprout up

Aw, shucks.  It looks like getting an electoral kick in the arse from the people of London and losing the plum job he was eyeing to Anne Marie DeCicco-Notthebest (57,891 to 35,803), ol’ Joe Bananas, former Liberal Minister of Not Getting Much Done, is throwing in the towel.  Guess Fightin’ Joe doesn’t have any fight left in him…

Oddly enough, while firing off his last shots at the Polish Hall last night, Joe actually sounded pretty…  well, conservative: 😯

“Whatever the final numbers are, you cannot ignore a lot of people believe that this city needs change,” Fontana told about 300 supporters last night after conceding the mayoral race to incumbent Anne Marie DeCicco-Best.

“We cannot continue to tax people. We cannot continue to see our young people leave. We cannot continue to see our neighbourhoods and our downtown be a place where people are afraid to go to,” Fontana said.

Now he grows a brain… 🙄

GLEE! GLEE!

I’ve practically got it coming out the wazoo. Glee, that is. I know, I know; it’s poor sportsmanship, in bad taste and all that. But, like Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas morning, I just can’t help it!

Alright; calming down now; taking a deep breath and all that. Just what is it that’s got me so obnoxiously happy, you want to know? Okay, I’ll tell you.

Everybody knows that politicians have an amusing tendency to shoot themselves in the foot every now and then. King Ralph seems to have a bead permanently drawn on his big toe but then, Ralph seems to have kevlar boots, too. 🙄 Anyways, the Freeps, along with a bunch of other MSM outlets, is yoleling away about how local HypoGrit Dave Burghardt has nuked himself in the foot, and MP wannabe Glen Pearson was nowhere near minimum safe distance. It seems that ol’ Dave was a blogger a while ago (but it’s all gone POOF now) and was displaying signs of a decidedly unHypoGritical mindset. Some of the more damaging examples from today’s Freeps:

Belinda Stronach’s defection from the Conservatives to the Liberals: “All this demonstrates one more reason why women shouldn’t be allowed to run for office, much less vote. It is a fool who looks (for) logic in the chambers of the female mind.” (May 18, 2005).

Grits: “What it means to be Liberal was long ago replaced with greed, expediency and corruption…. the Liberal Party is dying, suffering from a chronic case of no ideas, no leaders and no ability to do anything about it.” (March 19, 2006).

Kyoto: “The idea behind Kyoto is so utterly stupid it’s no wonder our loony left has embraced it as the environmental saviour. . . Kyoto is nothing but PR — it won’t work, it’s only a chance for international leaders to get their pictures taken together looking like environmentalists.” (March 28, 2005);

Muslim feelings of alienation: “If the Muslim community feels alienated from the rest of Canada, pass the Ny-Quil because I won’t be able to sleep tonight.” (July 20, 2005).

😯 Oh, poop. Women shouldn’t vote? And the Moonbat Brigade likes to hoot about US supposedly being a bunch of mean, nasty, lowbrow, knuckle-dragging, protohuman… ah, you get the idea. 😆 Seeing the Librano$ getting flogged with their own favourite stick like this is enough to give me wood of my own. 😉

To give some credit to the poor bugger, Pearson did pinkslip the blowhard Burghardt immediately after finding out about the blog on Sunday morning. He then promptly proved, once and for all, that he really is a typical so-open-minded-his-brain-fell-out liberal: he went to Dipper rival Megan Walker and, well… See for yourself:

“I did say to her, ‘Megan, it is up to you and your team what you want to do about it, but Dave is a friend of mine,’ and I hoped she would do the right thing. These kinds of things can affect a person and I wanted her to be thinking about that.”

Walker, naturally, promptly ran to the nearest media stooge she could find and tattled:

“This raises some very serious questions about Glen Pearson’s judgment,” said Walker

I agree with the Dipper. Yes, you read that right. This does raise questions (and damned serious ones, at that) about Glen Pearson’s judgement. Anyone that can possibly be so naive as to think, whether through ignorance or willful self-deception, that a fawning footsoldier in the rabid regiments of the Looney Left somehow would refrain from exploiting anything and everything that they can get their hands on (usually in the most crass, lowest-common-denominator fashion) for political gain is clearly too deluded to be trusted with public office of any kind.

Bye, Glen. It was fun while it lasted.

First things first: a flip o’ my chapeau to the Relapsed Catholic for beating me to the punch on this one.

Some people will look at the issue and think that I’m referring to Xeno in the usual “xenophobia” context. Not so.

I’m referring to Xeno of Elea, the Greek pholosopher famous for, amongst other things, his paradoxes. You know; those bothersome little questions that, by their very nature, seem to have no possible answer at all. Perhaps the most famous of all of them was the question which has so often been paraphrased like this:

What, exactly, would occur if an immovable object were to be struck by an irresistable force?

What, indeed? It is beginning to seem as if this very question is, as you read this, being played out in Regina.

Bill Whatcott, a “long-time pro-life and family campaigner” from the Big Flat, has recently been slapped to the tune of $17,500 by Saskatchewan’s Human Rights Tribunal for… wait for it… hurt feelings.

Yup, that’s right. We’ve gone from “sticks and stones may break my bones” to “BOO HOO, he hurt my feelings, your honour; WHERE’S MY CHEQUE?!?!”

Okay, let’s examine this, shall we? First, in my opinion: yeah, he went a little overboard and crossed the line of decent debate (kinda hard to look reasonable strolling down the street holding a sign saying “Bare Bottomed Pitifuls are Celebrating Buggery in Regina. God Help Us!”), but it is still damned hard to slap down the very logical points that he does make:

If you can find factual inaccuracies in my flyers or if you can find that I said something in bad faith, at that point there should be civil penalties […] I’d be the first one to agree with that. […] If I’m lying by saying that homosexuals are predisposed to sexually transmitted diseases at a rate greater than the general population, by all means find me liable for slander. If I’m wrong in saying….that there is a predisposition in homosexuality towards the sexual abuse of children, if that can be factually proven to be wrong, find me guilty of libel. But don’t tell me that I can’t say something that is true.

In other words: “prove me wrong and I’ll take my medicine.” Sounds reasonable to me. Also sounds like the best way to deal with any disagreement, debate or what have you.

But the problem here (and a chilling one it is) is that the SHRC doesn’t seem to give a damn about bothersome little things like facts or truth. According to Janice Gingell (a lawyer for the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission):

Sexual orientation is a protected category under the code and you are not allowed to say things that will cause other people to feel hatred or ridicule or belittlement towards members of those protected categories.

Yup, you got it. Thou Shalt Not Speak Against The Priviledged Group. Period. Truth? Lies? Doesn’t matter. Just sit the hell down and shut the hell up. Forget freedom of reli… aw, screw it. Forget any freedoms you think you have. None of them matter. You aren’t one of the Protected Ones. So you’re screwed.

Orwell himself couldn’t have done better.

Getting back to Xeno….

…he will not pay a $17,500 fine ordered by Saskatchewan’s Human Rights Tribunal […] Whatcott has vowed to continue distributing his flyers with about 3,500 more to go out on Thursday.

Wow, what are the odds? Who could have ever imagined that of all Canadians, it would be the French that would get grumpy about antismoking laws? As a lot of people (especially smokers in la Belle Province) already know, Quebec hopped on the anti-puffing hypocrisy hayride earlier this year and became the latest in the lineup of regions to ban a perfectly legal substance from just about everyplace in public.

It now seems that a motley crew of bar owners, employees and patrons have taken up the idea that the Quebec antismoking laws are… hmm… how should I put this?

Complètement plein du merde? Pardon my French.

Not being content to merely sit around puffing away in the rain and griping, about 150 owners and employees turned out for a bit of a noisy demonstration outside the provincial courthouse in Montreal. Meanwhile, inside the courthouse:

A Quebec Superior Court judge will be asked today to repeal the province’s anti-smoking law in time for the holidays.

Maintaining they have suffered irreparable financial damage since Quebec banned smoking in bars and restaurants May 31, Quebec bar owners are scheduled to appear in court to ask for an injunction that would temporarily overturn the tough new law.

The injunction is a stop-gap measure while bar owners wait for the Supreme Court of Canada to hear their case challenging the constitutionality of Quebec’s anti-smoking law.

Seriously, folks; just how long did anyone think it was going to take for this to happen?

First things first, let’s get my own bias out of the way. Yes, I smoke; yes, I know it’s a bad habit; and no, I don’t want my kids doing it. But I am also sick and God damned tired of all the hypocrisy from the second-hand-smoke finger wagging crowd. The same frigging idiots that tell me that I can’t sit down and enjoy a stogie in my favourite pub are the same nattering nannies that trumpet the virtues of letting junkies shoot up in comfort and now, giving potheads their own toking pit at work! No, I’m NOT making that up:

TORONTO (Reuters) – The use of medical marijuana has given two Toronto professors the right to something that many students could only dream of — access to specially ventilated rooms where they can indulge in peace.

So, let me get this straight: if I want a butt at the bar with my buddies, I’m either SOL or getting fined (or both), but if I wanna get stoned, I’m not only fine and dandy, I’m going to get a nice little space set aside for me at public expense.  I’m not the only one smelling the bullshit here, am I?

And don’t bother with any of that “second hand smoke” or “burden on the healthcare system” crap, either. The main toxin that you suck back every day is vehicle exhaust and, at over eight bucks a pack, I’m putting a lot more money into the health care system than a nonsmoker is, so don’t try to pretend we aren’t paying our own way.

Another thing that irks me is the “with smoking banned in bars, more nonsmokers will start coming out” nonsense. If there were a market for smoke-free pubs, the free market would have jumped on that bandwagon long ago. How many smoke-free pubs did you ever hear of before it was enforced by Big Nanny? None. But, just in London alone, dozens of small pubs have gone belly up since the Ministry Of Knowing What’s Best For You declared that their patrons had to take their habit out into the elements. That’s a bunch of lost jobs.

You can’t encourage junkies out of one side of your mouth while condemning us out the other. We aren’t doing anything illegal, we pay our own damn way and we are getting damned tired of being treated like second class citizens by holier-than-thou wannabe architects of the future.

As for me, I think I’m gonna go have me a smoke now…