Category: Americas

Alright, everybody, pay attention.  This is important.

It seems like all the quibbling of “is there one or isn’t there one,” is over when it comes to the question of whether or not southwest Ontario has itself a resident cougar.  And I’m talking about the kind that doesn’t wear lipstick.

The Freeps carrried the story today, telling how the big cat — that all the “experts” told us couldn’t possibly be here — made such a mess out of some poor fella’s standardbred trotter out on Elliott Drive near Parkhill that the horse had to be put down…

Parkhill residents have been warned to be on the lookout for a cougar after a horse was viciously mauled by an animal with sharp claws and had to be put down.

Since the attack, which left the horse torn up and bleeding on an Elliott Drive farm last week, there has been at least one cougar sighting, Middlesex OPP Const. Doug Graham said.

In response to the attack and the sighting, police and North Middlesex council issued a public safety notice yesterday, warning residents to avoid walking alone at night in the bush and to secure barns.

“The risk is low, but we know (the animal) is not as fearful of humans as it normally would be,” Graham said. “Normally we see losses of pets, dogs and cats, but this is the first attack of a horse.”

The attack on the horse has not been confirmed as a cougar attack, but the injuries are consistent with that of a cougar hunting prey, police said.

[…]

“It was traumatic,” Graham said. “The wounds (were made by) one animal as opposed to a pack. It wouldn’t be consistent with a coyote or wolf — they hunt in packs.”

He said the wounds were made by “sharp claws. This (horse) was attacked by a large predator that knew how to attack a large animal.”

Cougar sightings have become almost legendary in the region.

Last summer, a wildlife specialist with the Natural Resources Ministry investigated 32 sightings in London, but found no hard evidence of a cougar in London.

The expert did find proof of deer, coyotes, raccoons, wild turkeys and possibly a bobcat.  [gee, he was thorough, wasn’t he? 🙄 -D]

Cougars, also known as pumas, mountain lions and panthers, roam remote areas across the country, mostly Western Canada. Their presence has been confirmed in New Brunswick and Quebec and provinces west of Ontario. Wildlife experts concede they likely roam remote regions of northwestern Ontario. Most of the past Ontario sightings have been at night and in the early fall.

For the most part, the community is not overly concerned, Graham said.

“People realize there has never been an attack on a human. The cats are normally out at dusk and dawn (and) young children tend not to be out at that time of day.”

Apparently Graham doesn’t know too many small town and country kids.  When I was growing up, depending on the time of the year, we could be damned near anyplace around dusk, so make sure that you know where your kids are and when.  And make sure they know what to watch for and not to mess with it.  I’ve seen what one of these things can do to a grown man and don’t even want to imagine what could happen to a kid.

And, as cool as that guy was to hear about, I don’t exactly feel like writing any posts about a local Marc Patterson anytime soon.

CKNX is also reporting that the OPP are warning folks that the critter is still around:

Middlesex OPP are advising area residents that there has been a cougar sighting along a creek in the Parkhill area.

This sighting follows a mauling of a horse last week.

The mauling of the horse has not been confirmed as a cougar attack, however, the injuries are consist with that of a cougar hunting prey.

A cougar expert says they prefer forested or bush areas, usually follow a water course and try to avoid human contact.

Most of the Ontario sightings are in the early Fall.

So for the time being, keep the kids close and your eyes open because this thing’s getting a little too ballsy for my liking.  And while it might not be a bad idea to keep the ammo near the old 12 gague for a few days, don’t go hunting the thing just yet, because a) deer season’s just around the corner so this critter might come to an unlucky end anyway and b) you likely don’t need the hassle of explaining why it is that you shot something that there isn’t even a season for in this province.

But if you see it going after your livestock — or even worse, somebody’s kids — that’s another matter.  Just be observant, keep your head, and for God’s sake, make sure what you aim at.

You know the drill.

UPDATE

The Freeps has a follow-up today from Cheryl Penny’s farm:

When Penny and partner Bob Rundle went across the pasture to collect Rainbow, they were shocked.

“Her head was all smashed in, she was bleeding from a nostril and there was this long gash, right to the bone,” Penny said.

A veterinarian examined Rainbow’s injuries and recommended the horse be put down.

“I agreed because I hate to see an animal in distress,” Penny said.

Rundle said he’s convinced Rainbow was spooked.

“There’s no way she’d jump three fences and that cut from shoulder to knee,” he said.

“I didn’t see a cougar and I can’t prove it, but one was spotted not far from here and it was either that or some other wild animal that spooked her.”

Yeah, there’s been plenty of cutlery broken out for poor li’l Steffie Deedles lately, some Liebral and some not, but the sharpest fork stuck in his flip-flopping backside seems to have come from, of all palces… Owen Sound, Ontario.

Owen Sound Sun Times edotor Michael Den Tandt managed to sum up, in no uncertain terms, exactly what pretty much the whole damned country is thinking about Citoyen Dion these days. While I normally tend to shy away from kicking someone when they’re down, this bugger really did ask for it, and Den Tandt delivers with both barrels:

Stick a fork in Dion – he’s done

Posted By michael den tandt

Stephane Dion, welcome to Hell. You will be a resident of Hell for several months, perhaps six. During that time Prime Minister Stephen Harper will take you apart in little pieces, like a mean boy pulling the wings off a fly. When it’s over there will be an election, which you will lose.

Far from appreciating your effort and sacrifice, the Liberal Party will drag you kicking and screaming into a scrubby field. There it will dispatch you cleanly and quickly – with Michael Ignatieff standing by, murmuring messages of encouragement and condolence. Ignatieff will take your job. You will retire to a modest pension in the south of France, where you will sit in a patch of sunlight, a blanket over your knees, dreaming of what might have been.

Farfetched? Not so much.

In the aftermath of the Liberal leader’s decision to prop up the Harper government for another few months, there’s been much talk in party circles of how very clever it all was. “He is a very capable individual, who maneuvered through deep waters,” was how Huron-Bruce Liberal MP Paul Steckle phrased it.

To hear them talk, it’s almost as though Harper fell into Dion’s trap. On one side we have the wicked Stephen Harper, scheming to engineer an election that “Canadians don’t want.” On the other we have a newly savvy Stephane Dion, who has a few tricks up his sleeve, thank you very much. It’s as though the Liberals are saying: See, we can be sneaky and opportunistic too, just like Harper. What’s so special about him?

Only in dreamland can anyone suggest this episode connotes anything but desperation on Dion’s part. According to multiple reports from within the Liberal Party, he wanted to go to the polls. How could he not? In recent weeks he’d laid down a string of unshakable conditions for keeping this government alive. The most important of these was a hard date of February, 2009 for an end to Canada’s military mission in Afghanistan. Harper stared at that line, eyeballed Dion, eyeballed the line, then hopped right across it with a big smirk on his face.

Dion’s first instinct was to fight. But he couldn’t. His caucus wouldn’t let him. They know that if they go to the voters this fall, many of them will lose their $178,000-a-year jobs. In Quebec the Liberals are imploding. In Ontario, where you’d think Dion would have had a little more currency because of his national unity credentials, he’s gained none. Out West he had none to begin with.

Here’s the poison: The decision to pan the throne speech virtually in its entirety, then concoct a grab-bag of exquisitely nuanced excuses for passing it, feeds directly into Dion’s greatest political liability – the perception that he’s weak. In chess they call this a fork. Move one way, you lose your rook. Move the other way, you lose your queen. Either way you lose. Dion is well and truly forked.

In Quebec, some voters dislike him because of a perception that he is arrogant, aloof and out of touch with ordinary folk. He speaks like a Frenchman – a testament to his French mother. But that doesn’t play well in the Saguenay. Other Quebecers tar him, unfairly, as a traitor, because of his authorship of the Clarity Act. Still others continue to mistrust the Liberals because of the sponsorship scandal.

In Ontario Dion began with a reputation as a smart, honest and hardworking minister. Despite his gawkiness and heavily accented English, he was known as a man of conviction. Journalists who remembered his fight with Quebec separatists in the 1990s referred to him as having a “spine of steel.”

Then came the Harper strategy, taken directly from the Brian Mulroney play book, of seeking a majority through Quebec. First Harper learned to speak French better than any other recent prime minister, including the francophone Jean Chretien. Then he declared Quebec a “nation.” Then he struck a back-room alliance with Mario Dumont’s soft-nationalist, centre-right Action Democratique. Taken together, it worked.

This put the Liberals in severe need of a wedge issue for Quebec. They seized on the most obvious one, the Afghan mission. Polls showed Quebecers overwhelmingly opposed the deployment. Overnight the Liberals, who conceived and launched the mission, transformed themselves into its harshest critics. Trouble is, that hasn’t worked. Liberal fortunes in Quebec have only worsened. Has anyone in the Liberal brain trust considered that some Quebecers’ interest in and support for the mission may actually increase because the Valcartier, Que.-based Vandoos are over there now? It doesn’t seem so.

Meantime the various Liberal flip-flops on Afghanistan have sewn confusion in Ontario and in the West. Dion says one thing, Foreign affairs critic Bob Rae says another, Defence Critic Denis Coderre says something else. Do they want our troops to stay and finish what they began or do they want to pull them out? Nobody knows. In Dion’s speech to Parliament Wednesday he came up with yet another nuance: An extended mission focused on training Afghan security forces would be “acceptable.” Um, Stephane, that’s what the mission is focused on now. Does this mean you support it again?

Dion has made his choice. He now faces an endless succession of confidence votes. In each case Harper will press legislation inimical to Liberal principles and dare Dion to call him out. With each new concession Harper will look stronger and Dion weaker. If Dion pulls the trigger, he loses. If he waits, he loses. In effect Stephen Harper has just maneuvered himself into a majority in all but name.

That makes Dion many things. Unlucky? Doomed? You be the judge. Savvy, in my view, doesn’t make the list.

Michael Den Tandt is editor of the Sun Times in Owen Sound and a national affairs columnist for Osprey Media. Contact mdentandt@thesuntimes.ca

Well, will you just look at this? Everybody’s not-so-favourite bag of maggot shit is (Surprise! Surprise!) fiddlyfrigging about and playing the system. That’s right, Jesse Imeson is doing what scumbags like him always do whenever they get caught in this country: jerking the system around and dragging his sorry ass for all he’s worth.

And no, I’m not surprised. You shouldn’t be, either [my emphasis, of course]…

GODERICH — Accused triple murderer Jesse Imeson is represented by a new lawyer, his third since his capture after a massive police hunt.

[…]

Court was told Imeson is now represented by Raymond Boggs. His Toronto law firm, Boggs and Levin, works exclusively on criminal cases.

Boggs’s firm’s website promises clients “aggressive relentless defence” and boasts that Boggs’s cross-examination in a multiple sexual assault case prompted a complaint by the Crown that it was “the most vicious that he had ever seen.”

[…]

Boggs wasn’t in court yesterday and although identified in court several times as Imeson’s lawyer, When contacted, Boggs said he could not confirm that information.

“I don’t have authorization to make that disclosure,” he said.

Asked what it would take to get authorization, he said: “I would need to talk to my client, if I have one.”

Court was told Imeson spoke to Boggs Sunday and Boggs is still awaiting disclosure of all the police evidence against Imeson, who is scheduled to appear again by video link on Nov. 2.

Waiting for disclosure, eh? Well, maybe if the prick would stick with a lawyer, the crown would know where the hell to send the shit, wouldn’t they?

So here we are. Imeson has finally found his kind of lawyer: the kind of weasel/pit bull crossbreed that will browbeat a rape victim on the stand but will mealy-mouth his way around anything resembling a question pointed at him. These pricks really deserve each other, don’t they?

Just think of how much better this world would have been if some farmer, hunter, or whoever up in Huron had just managed to trip over this bastard and blow his head off before he managed to skip the county…

“Dennis,” people have been asking me a lot lately, “what the hell’s up with you, man? There’s been an election campaign going on all summer in Ontario and, aside from a couple of posts about how lousy an idea MMP is, we haven’t heard a damn thing from you. You’re not packing it in, are ya?”

No, I’m not packing it in. It’s just that getting laid off back at the beginning of summer, job-hunting and then getting settled in to the new job have taken up one hell of a lot of my time lately. Anybody out there that’s ever had to switch jobs knows exactly what I’m talking about. And as far as the provincial election goes, well, I think I can sum it up pretty well…

Faith based schools. Faith based schools. Faith based schools faith based schools faith based schools faith based schools faith based schools faith based schools faith based schools faith based schools faith based schools faith based schools faith based schools faith based schools faith based schools faith based schools faith based schools faith based schools faith based schools faith based schools faith based schools faith based schools faith based schools faith based schools faith based schools faith based schools faith based schools faith based schools faith based schools.

Just about sums it up, doesn’t it? Way back at the beginning of the race, John “Guess What Party I’m With” Tory said that if he got elected, faith-based schools in Ontario would be able to get some funding, therby bringing them into the public fold and holding them to the same academic standards as the rest of the schools in the province. He made the announcement and then moved on to other things. Dolt McGuilty, however, seized on it like a tarrier with a rat and has maniacally banged away on that same drum over and over, drowning out all other discourse in the campaign. The stupidity of the whole transparent ruse, along with the baffling herd-of-sheep response of Ontariens to it, got to such an extreme that even Howard Hampton J. Pig blew a gasket at the media for having gone so gleefully along with the whole sham. And that’s probably what pissed me off the most…

An irate Howard Hampton swept through Southwestern Ontario yesterday, dragging a campaign’s worth of baggage.

That burden — his party falling in the polls, the faith-based school funding issue dominating debate — blew open in Hamilton, as the NDP leader strafed his Tory rival and the media, accusing journalists of hijacking the campaign and ignoring real issues.

[…]Hampton’s frustration boiled over into a blistering attack on Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory, whom he called a “disaster” whose mistakes have given the ruling Liberals a free ride. “Mr. Tory’s campaign has been chaos,” Hampton said, noting the faith-based school funding vow has hijacked the campaign debate.

… because, as all of you know, there’s just about nothing in the world that I hate more than being forced to agree with a socialist. And, as Lorrie Goldstein saw when he talked to Hampton, Hampton might be getting the same nauseaous feeling, even going so far as to say something sounding vaguely … conservative…

Asked what he’d say to voters poised to give Premier Dalton McGuinty a second majority government, while ignoring his record of fibs and broken promises in favour of the minor issue of stopping public funding for non-Catholic religious schools, Hampton deadpanned: “What do I say? I say, well, then people get the government they deserve (laughter) that’s what I say.”

Hampton, meeting with the Sun’s editorial board, knows, as we do, that if McGuinty wins big Oct. 10, it won’t be long before voters who abandoned the Tories and NDP to back the Liberals will be asking themselves what they’ve done.

No shit, Sherlock. For the record: I’m against public funding for faith-based schools, but not for any of the reasons that McSquinty and the Liebrals barf up. He who pays the piper calls the tune and I don’t think it’s a good idea to let a rabidly secular government ministry be in the position of holding a financial gun to the head of a school that might be teaching something that goes against whatever the trendy Leftbotâ„¢ dogma du jour might be. Keep government the hell out of it; it’s better for the schools. That’s my take.

But, to listen to McGuilty, you’d think that white kids would be going to all the good schools and black kids would be lucky to end up in a one-room schoolhouse if Tory’s plan went ahead. You don’t think he’s hammering away on the word “segregation” by accident, do you? And the media, from top to bottom, have been all too happy to help him out.

But it’s the smart thing for McGuilty to do, isn’t it? The sad fact is that Ontario is likely the most intolerant province in Canada (yes, even worse than Quebeckers or those nasty Albertans), especially when it comes to religion. This is because Ontario has become infested with the disease of the Leftbotâ„¢ mindset and religion is the ultimate enemy of the modern neoliberal ideology…

The neolib socialist philosophy (there really isn’t much “neo” about it) requires, above all else, that the masses give their first and foremost loyalty over to the authority of the secular state (of course, you and I know how well that has worked out in the past, but they don’t, for some reason…). Religion gives people a higher authority than the state, therfore it has to go. They won’t come out and say this out loud, but that’s still the meat of it. This is the mindset that has infected Ontario; especially urban Ontario.

John Tory should have known this. He made a rank-amateur mistake and now he’s given McGuilty four more years in Queens Park and the people of Ontario four more years of weak leadership.

This week, I’ll still be voting Conservative, but I’m afraid J.T. already sold the farm.

…is that there might be someone around willing to stick up for him.

This guy is getting excoriated in the media lately. Naturally. Nothing pisses the media off more than getting called on the carpet for their bullying misdeeds. Yeah, that’s right: I’m talking about Oklahoma State University’s head football coach, Mike “screw with my kids and I’ll rip ya a new one” Gundy.

What did he do? Well, it’s simple: he had the gall to take the media to task for the cheap shots that they were taking at one of his players. The media, naturally, are calling it a “meltdown.” Of biblical proportions, no less.

But what should we expect? The media have always been bullies, eager to dish out the most vicious criticism of anyone and anything and then squealing like stuck pigs whenever someone so much as looks sideways at them.

So… did Gundy, nave a “meltdown?” Pete Schrager doesn’t think so, and neither do I. All I see is a coach sticking up for one of his players who’s been kicked when he’s down. But hey, why take my word for it? See for yourself and make up your own mind…

I don’t blame some of you for wondering. It’s been (what, a month now?) quite a while since I had the time to sit down and shoot my yap off about anything. Kind of lousy that such a thing had to happen right in the middle of a provincial election campaign, especially with Dolt McGuilty in such dire need of getting what’s coming to him.

But living takes priority, right? The new job has been eating up what time and energy I have, so that’s where my efforts have been going. Don’t worry, though; I’m back and ready to spew about my favourite peeve of late: MMP.

The bullshit brigade that’s been peddling this prattle as if it were holy scripture will tell you that that stands for “Mixed-Member Proportional,” as in “better democracy than we have now.” Bullshit. I know what it really stands for: More Machiavellian Politicians.

Here’s the way it’s supposed alleged to go: some proportional representation means that people who wouldn’t get a voice in Queen’s Park under the current first-past-the-post (FPTP) system will now get a voice equal to the amount of the vote that they get. Get 10% of the popular vote, get 10% of the seats set aside for MMP. Real democracy in action. More Power To The Peopleâ„¢.

Yeah, right. I’ve ranted about what a bad idea this is before, originally back on the 19th of April. For those of you that might have missed, here’s the way that it’ll really work:

Instead of electing 107 MPPs to go to the Arsehole of the Universe® to represent the interests of their local constituents, we’ll only get to elect 90. Another 39 widget-herders (making a total of 129; 22 more political leeches than we already support) would be picked not by such unwashed types as you and I; they would be picked by their parties. That’s right; they’d be accountable to the party, not to you!

Besides the erosion of regional representation that is so vital to a province as vast as Ontario (see my previous rant for details), this whole damned thing stinks of the kind of cronyism that makes Adscam® look like a minor boo-boo.

Think about it: those 39 bozos looking to clamp onto our collective taxpayer teat would be picked from lists drawn up by the parties. No party can be trusted with that. No, not even the Conservatives (and I’m a card-carrying Tory!).

“AHA!!” the moonbats shriek. “Even a conservative doesn’t trust the Conservatives!” Please do piss off.

This has nothing to do with whether or not any one party can or can’t be trusted. It has to do with understanding human nature. Whereas leftbots tend to see the human species through rose-coloured coke bottle bottoms, we conservative types take a more realistic view. We also actually pay attention to the lessons of history. These lists that the MMP MPPs will be pulled from will be filled with nothing but failed candidates and party hacks. Can you say “cronies,” boys and girls? Try practicing it in front of the mirror if you have trouble.

But that’s not the end of it. Experience in other countries has shown that a system like that makes small fringe parties breed like rabbits on viagra in a vaselene factory. Under the scheme being proposed, a party would need to get 3% of the vote to get one of the MMP freebies.

Think about that; that’s fewer than one in twenty. While you’re at it, think about 20 people that you know. No, it doesn’t matter who, just think about any twenty people that you know. Guess what? At least one of ’em’s a kook. And if you’re thinking about 20 people and can’t figure out who the kook is… it’s you. Do you really think you want to give the clowns a say in how the circus is run?

Hey! Come to think of it, I’ve been underrepresented… While there isn’t a politician in Ontario that has the guts to come out and say it, I know damned well that I’m not alone in thinking that it’s high time that Ontario got a conceal & carry law! You know what I’m talking about: the kind of law that allows law-abiding folks with no criminal record to arm themselves. Everybody knows that the scumbags aren’t worried about cops or courts, but they’re damned well scared shitless about bumping into somebody like me with a .44 (or better yet, .50 cal) Desert Eagleâ„¢ tucked into a shoulder holster that won’t think twice about saving the public some money if given an excuse. That’s saving money as in not having to pay out a shitload of my tax dollars to pay for your lawyer and then house and feed your worthless ass for the next 20 years or so. All that stuff’s expensive; ammo is cheap. Sort of.

No politician will admit it but when decent folks are alone in that voting booth, you’d be surprised how many of us are itching for the chance to see the shitbags of society shaking in their boots for a change. Damn… the Blow A Gangbanger’s Brains Out Party® could end up with 39 seats in Queen’s Park!!

Hm. Come to think about it, this MMP thing might not be so bad after all. Please disregard this post. Except for the last three paragraphs, of course… 😉