… wants to be Prime Minister. He actually thinks that he somehow deserves your vote. 😯

For those of you that just come here but not to the BT website: that’s where I found this (thanks guys).

You know, I actually don’t know how to go with this one. Really, I don’t. Half of me wants to wallow in partisan glee at his idiocy, but the other half of me actually feels… what the hell is that, anyway? Sympathy???

Any fool knows I’ve never had any love for Dion, not by a long shot. But the poor bastard just seems so… utterly out of his depth here that I almost can’t help but feel sorry for him. Yes, I know; I’m a poor excuse for a partisan SOB. Tough.

But I gotta tell ya, after seeing this, the thought of this guy holding the levers gives me the willies now more then ever (and I didn’t think that was possible)…

And he wants us to trust him to steer our economy through what is likely an upcoming global recession. God help us…

Well, isn’t this just God damned jolly?

It’s been more than a decade and a half since the poop hit the windmaker in Oka, Quebec and now, if you believe what some media outlets are coughing up, we’re pretty much smack-dab right back where we started, waiting for it to blow up again. Reading the Freeps and the Winterpeg Sun, you’d think the whole thing was a powder shed, with a chimp playing with matches inside…

The war never ended in Kanesatake, the Mohawk community at the centre of the Oka crisis, and now the government has been put on notice history might repeat itself.

Ottawa’s lead negotiator on the Kanesatake file has received two letters this year from the Kanesatake Women’s Coalition warning the federal government to stop negotiating with the band council. The letters say they could throw up a highway blockade or worse to force the issue.

“I do not have to remind you that this is exactly what happened back in 1990. The chief and council of the day did not have the authority or the mandate to negotiate our land rights in the pines for the expansion of the Oka golf course,” says one of the letters.

“The Mohawk women of Kanesatake warned the federal Conservative government of that day and its negotiator that if they continued to negotiate with the council without the community’s input there will be war and war did break out.”

War, my ass. For those of you that don’t remember all too well: as soon as the army started moving forward, all the “Mohawk warriors” started moving back. Yeah, big surprise. This reserve has been known more for its lawlessness than any other one in the country that I can think of. For example, take a look at what happened a little over three years ago:

An incident on Jan. 12, 2004 triggered it all. When 67 police and auxiliary officers from outside communities descended on Kanesatake armed with three submachine guns, a sniper rifle, two automatic rifles, a semi automatic rifle, two pump-action shotguns and thousands of rounds of ammunition, all hell broke loose. Warriors and community members laid siege to the police station for two days. The force was eventually let out of the community and Gabriel’s [referring to Former Grand Chief James Gabriel] house was burned down.

Nice, huh? As if that weren’t bad enough, this fiasco also has its lips firmly locked on the public teat, to boot:

The official says Ottawa has spent $51 million on the Kanesatake negotiating process since 1994. Of that, $35 million was spent on the acquisition of 178 pieces of property, $4 million was spent on negotiations for the government side and $9 million for the Kanesatake side, according to the official.

This is getting ridiculous. Granted, the Tories haven’t had this file for too long and they’ve had other things on their plate, but there hasn’t been any indication that I’ve seen that they’re going to deal with this properly any more than the Grits did. And with all the talk about a nation-wide “day of action” (read: “shit-disturbing”) this coming Friday, you have to wonder: just when the hell is the government going to put its foot down and say, “the law is the law and you damned well follow it whether like it or not and no, we don’t give a shit what colour you are.”

Granted, the current system for land claim resolution sucks. But Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice recently unveiled a plan to fix that mess. In the meantime, however, the government should be lowering the boom on any lawlessness they see and NO band should get anything until they damned well get it through their heads that yes, the law applies to them, too.

More today on the asshattery from the Arsehole Of The Universeâ„¢. You might recall from yesterday’s post that the chickendoves down at TO’s Silly Hall have decided, in their infinite wimpdom, that it would be a grand jolly idea to yank the yellow “Support Out Troops” ribbons off all the city’s firetrucks and ambulances.

Yeah, those ribbons. The ones that send the antiwar (read “anti-military utopian, la-la-land-dwelling”) crowd into fits.

The same boneheads that amongst other things, keep the wheels of TO’s homeless industry greased to the tune of over $100 million a year want to get rid of them. Their reasoning for such full-blown fiddlyfriggery were thoroughly astonishing:

The reason? It depends on who you talk to. And there are lots of contradictions.

Some say it is because it was not brought to council for proper approval, others say protocol was not followed. Another reason given is it was a one-year project.

But many City Hall sources tell me it has everything to do with some complaints from a few anti-war citizens who have the ear of some leftist councillors — and felt the ribbons were in support of the war in Afghanistan and not just in support of the troops.

‘IN CONVERSATIONS’

“It was a decision I made in conversations I had with the two chiefs,” said city manager Shirley Hoy, who was good enough to return a call yesterday on this and own up.

Several members of council did not extend the courtesy. Having said that, Hoy, though, still attempted to dance around this by saying it was a “one-year support program” and that the decision was made to remove the decals when the vehicles were scheduled for “regular maintenance.”

Surely, Shirley, every vehicle is not going in on the same day for repairs?

Well, it looks like their buffoonery has come back and bitten them on their little peacenik asses. Right quick…

Councillor Frances Nunziata said yesterday she would call on council to extend the yellow ribbon campaign after receiving calls from veterans who were “outraged and insulted” after reading a Sun report about the decals being removed from the emergency vehicles.

Mayor David Miller expressed support for Canadian troops but refused yesterday to intervene in the local battle that has erupted over plans to take yellow ribbon decals — a sign of support for the troops — off 170 fire trucks, 147 ambulances and 25 of that department’s emergency response cars and SUVs.

Well, isn’t that just cute? He supports the troops, as long as he doesn’t have to take a stand on anything.

Dear Dave,

NEWS FLASH, you little socialist weasel: if you support the troops, that means actually DOING something about it! You never have any problem with throwing your office’s weight around when it comes to one of your little Lefty feel-good, do-nothing projects or causes, do you? But when it comes to standing up for the very men and women that put their asses on the line to earn all the freedoms that you take for granted, you tuck tail and do dick all like the good little sniveling Leftist lapdog that you are. Yeah, you talk, but talk is cheap:

“There are calls from people saying, ‘Why are you expressing support for the war in Afghanistan’? My perspective is that troops — once they are put in harm’s way — everybody has to support them,” said Miller, whose uncle served in the British and Canadian navies.

SO WHY THE HELL AREN’T YOU SUPPORTING THEM, DAVE?? Without men like your uncle, men like you and your anti-military playmates are an evolutionary dead end, you little shit! Get off your worthless, no-balls-havin’ ass put a stop to this bullshit! You say that you support our troops, I say PROVE IT! Put the damn things back and leave ’em there until our troops come home.

Looks like de Tocqueville was right about people in democracies getting the government they deserve… 🙄

At least not everyone in TO is a blathering idiot:

“When you have families already living in anticipatory grief, it’s a bit of a slap in the face,” said Katherine Hodgson-McMahon, executive director of the Toronto Military Family Resource Centre.

As usual, “Scrawler” Joe Warmington nailed it:

GET A SPINE, MR. MAYOR

I dare you, Mr. Mayor!

I dare you, David Miller, to vote against the Canadian troops today.

And if you do, I then dare you to resign in disgrace and dishonour.

I would then dare you to face the families of the 57 soldiers already brought home in flag-draped coffins. Shame on you for even letting this get this far!

Amen to that.

== UPDATE ==

It seems that TO’s city council has proven that you actually can count on them to do the right thing. Whenever they’re cornered like rats in a trap, that is…

City councillors voted unanimously today in favour of keeping the “Support Our Troops” decals on fire trucks and ambulances. The issue became a political hot potato after Mayor David Miller backed a plan by fire and ambulance officials to have the stickers removed, starting in September.

It didn’t take me long after I sat down in front of my PC today to stumble over Paul Jackson’s latest offering at the Calgary Sun, “Appeasement is pure folly.” As most of you already know, I have a bit of a habit of checking out what’s on Paul’s mind from time to time. Sure, he sometimes comes off a little too pro-American for my taste but more often than not, he has a habit of being spot-on.

In today’s column, he talks about a little something that was passed on to him recently:

A remarkable document came into my hands the other day from a Republican friend in Washington and it is something that should be read by all patriotic Americans and Canadians.

It should also be read by lib-lefters, appeasers, sell-out artists and cowards in all western democracies who want the U.S. and Britain to pull out of Iraq, and the U.S., Britain and Canada to pull out of Afghanistan, and the West to just give in to the demands of fanatics such as Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and North Korea’s Kim Jong Il.

It’s entitled Europe — Your Name is Cowardice and was written, strangely, by a German, Mathias Dapfner, CEO of the huge publishing house Axel Springer (AG) and published in Germany’s largest newspaper Die Welt.

Alright Paul, you’ve got my attention. And after a bit of digging around, I find myself agreeing with you; this is definitely something to file in the “must read” column. The problem is: which version?

Ever since German periodical Die Welt published the editorial by Mathias Döpfner on 20 November 2004, there have been literally dozens of versions of it popping up here and there around the internet, in just about every Western language you can care to name. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing — like I said, I consider it a must-read — but the problem is that a lot of the English-language translations of this editorial that have been circulated via the Internet include alterations and additional invective that weren’t present in the original. Judging from the quotes in the article, Paul must have gotten one of these. Not that I’m trying to beat Mr Jackson over the head or anything but if we’re going to quote someone, let’s at least do our best to get it right.

So… before I get any more long-winded than I’m already being, let’s cut this short. Reproduced below is the most accurate-to-the-original translation that I could find (thanks to Snopes). Even without the extra barbs, it’s still damned good…

UPDATE: for those looking to split hairs, click here. 

A few days ago, Henryk M. Broder wrote in the Welt am Sonntag, “Europe — thy name is appeasement.” It’s a phrase you can’t get out of your head because it’s so painfully true.

Appeasement cost millions of Jews and Gentiles their lives as England and France, allies at the time, negotiated and hesitated far too long before realizing that Hitler had to be fought, not bound to agreements. Appeasement stabilized the Communist Soviet Union and the former East Germany, those parts of Eastern Europe where inhuman, suppressive governments were glorified as the ideological alternative. Appeasement crippled Europe when genocide ran rampant in Kosovo, and we debated and debated and were still debating when the Americans finally came in and did our work for us. Rather than protecting the only democracy in the Middle East, European appeasement, camouflaged behind the fuzzy word “equidistance,” relativizes the fundamentalist Palestinian suicide bombings in Israel. Appeasement generates a mentality that allows Europe to condone the 300,000 victims of Saddam’s torture and murder machinery in Iraq and condemn the actions of George Bush in the self-righteousness of the peace movement. And in the end it is also appeasement at its most grotesque when Germany reacts to the escalating violence of Islamic fundamentalists in Holland and elsewhere by proposing a national Muslim holiday.

What else has to happen before the European public and its political leadership realize that there is a form of crusade underway, an especially perfidious one of systematic attacks by fanatic Muslims targeting civilians, directed against our free, open Western societies. This is a conflict that will likely last longer than any of the great military conflicts of the last century, waged by an adversary who cannot be tamed by tolerance and accommodation but is instead spurred on by such gestures, mistaking them as signs of weakness.

Two recent American presidents had the courage needed for staunch anti-appeasement: Reagan and Bush. Ronald Reagan ended the Cold War, and Bush — supported only by the persuasive Social Democrat politician Tony Blair — recognized the danger in the Islamic war against democracy. His place in history will need to be evaluated a number of years down the road.

In the meantime, Europe snuggles into its multicultural niche instead of defending the values of a liberal society with charismatic certitude and acting as a positive center of power in a delicate balance between the true global powers, America and China. We instead present ourselves as the world champions of tolerance against the intolerants, which even Otto Schily [Germany’s former Federal Minister of the Interior] justifiably criticizes. And why, actually? Because we’re so moral? I fear it’s more because we’re so materialistic.

For his policies, Bush risks the devaluation of the dollar, huge amounts of added national debt, and a massive and lasting strain on the American economy — because everything is at stake.

Yet while America’s so allegedly materialistic robber baron capitalists know their priorities, we timidly defend the benefice of our social affluence. Just stay out of it; it could get expensive. We’d rather discuss our 35-hour workweek or our dental coverage or listen to televangelists preach about the need to “Reach out to murderers.” These days, it sometimes seems that Europe is like a little old lady who cups her shaking hands around her last pieces of jewelry as a thief breaks in right next door. Europe, thy name is Cowardice.

A little behind the herd here, I know but what can I say? I’ve been away for a bit. The recent act of war by Iran against Britain has, understandably, created more than a little bit of navel-gazing in its wake. Not a big surprise, when you take a minute to think about it. There was once a time when Britain would have never stood for that kind of crap (anybody out there remember the Falkland Islands?). Not now, it seems.

I was going to go on at some length about this but, as happens from time to time, somebody else not only beat me to it, they did it a lot better than I would have. So, just what do I do when someone has the audacity to outdo me like that? Simple: I steal their stuff and put it here for you to look at.

The following is from last Saturday’s TO Sun and is by UWO prof Salim Mansur; a man who quite probably has the firmest — and arguably, the bluntest — grasp of the Islamofascist mind of anyone in the country. Here’s his take on the issue, with no further needless commentary from yours truly:

Iran finds weak West

By SALIM MANSUR

The insolence of the thuggish regime in Iran is rising in inverse proportion to the self-abasement of the West and, in particular, the European Union.

The hostage taking of British sailors by Tehran was a move to test the resolve of Britain and its allies in responding to provocation bordering on an act of war.

Tony Blair’s failure to respond in a manner that could not be misread by Tehran for the immediate unconditional release of British sailors only confirmed the clerical regime’s estimate of the West as unwilling to contend with Iran’s expansionist ambitions in the Persian Gulf region.

Tehran learned from its experience of taking American diplomats hostage for 444 days that the West could be shown for being a paper tiger as China’s Mao had once described it.

The latest Iranian hostage taking should be seen in a wider context of Tehran’s strategic objective of being recognized as the leading Islamic power in a multipolar world wherein Europe and the United States are no longer dominant, and in the United Nations the countries of Asia and Africa provide for the majority bloc of voting members.

Iran’s ascent to the position Tehran’s clerical regime aspires might only be realized by dividing the Arab opposition to its ambition, defying the Security Council’s various resolutions to stop its bid to acquire nuclear capability, and securing Russian-Chinese support to nullify any threat of EU singly or in combination with the U.S.

From the outset of Iran’s 1979 revolution the regime’s supreme clerical guide, Ayatollah Khomeini, maintained the road to Jerusalem and the “liberation” of Palestine was through Karbala, the Iraqi site of martyrdom for the Shiite Imam Hussein and his family. In other words, the Persian Khomeini offered the Arab-Palestinian nationalists the example of Shiite martyrdom as the means for waging war against Israel.

Iran has succeeded in dividing the Arab states by positioning Hezbollah as its fifth column in the heart of the Arab east, and by financing the Hamas among Palestinians. A fragmented Arab world nursing innumerable grievances is unable to counter Iran’s age-old Persian ambition reincarnated in Islamist ideology and financed by bulging oil revenue.

The EU negotiations with Tehran to cease its no longer secret nuclear program in return for assistance to construct nuclear reactor for civilian use has proven to be a charade.

European trade with Iran has grown over time, and commercial interests of France, Germany and Italy trump any EU concerns over Iran’s race to become a nuclear power.

Nuclear capability is the guarantee the clerics seek to make Iran’s position in the Middle East invulnerable to external challenge. Domestically it would make the clerical regime more formidable even as Iranians increasingly loathe the totalitarian rule of Khomeini and his political progeny.

Tehran’s probing of Britain’s resolve by kidnapping its sailors could be indicative of the British mood being the same as in the rest of Europe, of appeasing and accommodating Iran. If this is so and clerical rulers of Iran are proven right, then only President George Bush stands between Tehran’s ambition and its consummation.

But the Bush administration is beset with problems exacerbated by a swing in American mood in the direction of European appeasers.

The clerics in Tehran will wait out the remaining months of Bush in the White House for they know too well the Democratic party of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, and taking British sailors hostage is their endgame move to run the West out of the Middle East.

Well, it may have taken a little longer than I expected, but the inevitable seems to have begun in Caledonia. After nearly six month of Grit dithering and bafflegab, residents of the small Ontario town are finding themselves with little or no patience left. Things started getting ugly a little after midnight last night and if you think it’s just going to get worse, you’re probably right.

Gutless waffling by the McSquinty government has emboldened the natives to believe that the law just doesn’t apply to them. From arson to swarming an old couple in their car, to attempted murder of a law officer, to letting the suspects get away with hiding on the reserve, the provincial Grits have done nothing but sit on their hands. Apparently they’re scared shitless that they’ll end up with another Ipperwash on their hands.

Well guess what, Dolt? If you don’t knock off the Pontius Pilate act and get the hell off your sorry arse, and right quick, most of us with two brain cells to rub togeather think that you’re going to find yourself in one hell of a bigger mess quicker then you can say “Dudley George.” You demand restraint and civil order from one side while letting the other run roughshod over our laws as they see fit. Haven’t you ever picked up a history book in your life? This is a recipe for an explosion of violence.

When that happens (and don’t fool yourself, numbskull, it will happen. You can only push decent folk so far before they decide to push back . . . hard), it will be all your fault. And everyone will know it. There will be no excuses that you can make because everyone is going to know goddamned well that you could have stopped this, but didn’t.