Category: Americas

[Sept 1 – I know that I’re recycling the crap out of this post, but it’s getting more and more relevant by the day. Besides, I just plain haven’t had the time to put up anything original lately. Don’t worry though; I plan on getting back to shooting my mouth off again regularly after the long weekend. -Dennis]

[May 17 – This post was originally put up on April 19 and while I’m not in the habit of bumping old material to the top again, today’s post by Ruth over at rootleweb has brought the issue back into my mind. Ruth and I are usually on the same page, but not this time. And the more I think of it, the more convinced I am that this is an issue that needs to stay on the front burner. So, for that, you get what’s probably my first-ever rerun… -Dennis]

I have to say that I am totally with Adam Daifallah on this one. On Sunday, the Ontario’s Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform proved that if you crack a brainfart in a confined enough space, you really can stupefy everyone in the room. Proving once again that Orwell was right when he said that “there are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them,” this gaggle of widget-wankers cacked up the suggestion that we bugger up our electoral system and dump the FPTP system in favour of topping it up with PR. Ontario voters get to decide on this latest clanger the pointy heads left on our rug when we go to the polls in October:

When provincial voters go to the polls Oct. 10 to elect a new government, they’re also to decide if the election status quo is good enough, or if a new system is needed. It’s called ‘mixed member proportional’ and gives greater representation to the popular vote. It would mean electing 90 politicians in enlarged ridings across Ontario using the current first-past-the-post system, with another 39 appointed by parties from a public list of candidates, according to the percentage of popular vote they received.

This is a bad idea. I’m honestly tempted to blab up that this is and even worse idea than the Farmer Bob Gun Registry Balls-up. No, I don’t think I’m going off half-cocked here; this has the potential to do one hell of a lot more damage than the registry ever did. All the gun registry really did was waste money and give the temporary illusion that a corrupt party was actually doing something to get tough on gun crime. This, on the other hand . . . this has the potential to weaken our entire democratic system, possibly paralysing the will of the people and placing real power in the hands of a few elite, possibly for generations.

Oh, shit; take his guns away and get the net. Dennis has lost it.

No, I haven’t. Look; I know that PR sounds like a good idea. A party gets 12% of the votes, it gets 12% of the seats in the legislature. Everybody’s vote counts, everybody has a say, the balance of the legislature truly reflects the collective will of the people . . . it’s the ultimate in democracy, right??

That’s the theory. The reality is somewhat messier. Look what has happened in other countries that have adopted PR: the influence and power of party machines and professional politicians has only been increased. Majority governments become nearly impossible. With no one clearly in charge, damn near nothing gets done and what little does manage to slip through is watered down to virtual uselessness. And the sonsofbitches that benefit from that chaos have no interest at all in fixing it:

The experience of the past hundred years in numerous countries has shown how PR leads small parties to breed like rabbits. Politics becomes a continual cabinet shuffle, with jostling and shifting coalitions. Governing along any steady course becomes extremely difficult. The Italians know this all too well, but when they tried to get rid of PR, the politicians who had gained power under that system got in the way.

You think that having a minority government, every now and then, is a pain in the ass? Try imagining that as being the best you can expect to get… EVER.

PR also effectively shitcans the idea of regional representation, something that is absolutely vital in a province as geographically diverse as Ontario, let alone a nation as vast as Canada. Imagine this, if you will (we’ll use a federal scenario for this example):

Under our current system, the people of a particular riding all get together and decide amongst themselves, without any outside interference, who is going to be their MP. This guy or gal then becomes that riding’s representative in Ottawa, NOT the Whatever Party’s representative in that riding. [Try explaining that to the Grits, I know; but I digress…] This means that the good folks of Freezeyourassoff, about 180 km northeast of Chruchill, get to decide who carries their concerns to the ears attached to the pointy heads in Ottawa.

Under PR, however, the Whatever Party decides that Eugene Sniffletwit, a fine upstanding academic from metro TO with an impressive alphabet soup of sociology on his business cards, is clearly a much more qualified representative to speak in the House than some backwards bumpkin who probably owns a gun. Mr Sniffletwit doesn’t own a gun. In fact, the only thing that Mr Sniffletwit knows about guns is that he doesn’t like them and any intelligent person can clearly see that that’s all he needs to know about them. So Eugene — guided by his superior intellect, honed through years at the finest hermetically sealed leftist educational institutions the country has to offer — throws his support behind the 2017 Guns Are Bad Act, which the all-urbanite House passes into law by a vote of 307-1 after Garth Turner worked himself into another snit. The Canadian Universal Firearms Ban takes effect January 1, 2018, making possession of any firearm an indictable offense punishable by up to 14 years in prison (or a week in your room, if you get a conditional sentence).

People in Freezeyourassoff are now prohibited from even owning a rifle, let alone carrying one as they go about their business in close proximity to animals that will eat them if given the chance. Freezeyourassoff now has a lucrative market for baseball bats with nails in them. But at least they were represented. Proportionately.

In response to this embarrassment, the government promptly introduces the Northern Communities Relocation Act because, let’s face it, those snotty eskimos have no bloody business living up there like that, bothering mommy nature’s creatures like polar bears, in the first place. Who do they think they are? If they’d bothered to go to university, they’d know better. We should pass an Act about that…

Over the top? Extreme? Of course. But if there’s one thing that I’ve managed to learn in my lifetime, it’s this: if something CAN be taken to its most ridiculous, idiotic, socially destructive extreme by lib-leftists, IT WILL BE!! Just look at all the inevitable, clearly foreseeable consequences predicted by conservatives in the past that were labelled “right-wing fearmongering” and look how many have come to pass.

Sure, this is only Ontario and it’s only a watered-down version of proportional representation, but mark my words:

THIS IS THE THIN END OF THE WEDGE!!!

If you value effective governance, STOP THIS NOW, before it has the chance to do any real damage! On October 10, vote for whoever you want (that’s your god-given right) but for God’s sake, vote against this bullshit. There’s a damned good reason why our Westminster model has lasted as long as it has: IT WORKS!

Don’t buy the snake oil. Keep Ontario’s democracy strong and stable. Do what you know to be right.

Well, now… it seems that I can’t put up comments on ye ol’ “Dispatches from the Socialist Gulag” blog since I don’t have a Blogger account (don’t feel the need for one, either). But Mike put up a post the got under my fingernails and so, here’s my response.

And before some smartass out there even gets it into his head to bark at me: I did my bit for Queen and Country. I appreciate the sentiment, but those behind this idea… just … don’t … get it.

Call it something else. Something more honest.

Sorry, Mike, but I can’t get onboard with this one. The word “hero” gets bandied about far too much these days and it’s in danger of being reduced to meaninglessness.

These men weren’t heroes. Fred “Toppy” Topham was a hero. Ernest “Smokey” Smith was a hero. These men coming home now just died in action, that’s all. They weren’t heroes, they were SOLDIERS.

They were soldiers.

At what God damned time in our history did we arrive at the point where THAT wasn’t good enough?

I don’t go to the cenotaph to remember “heroes.” I go to honour soldiers.

Soldiers is what they are.

And that’s more than enough.

God bless them all.

… not to share. Yeah, I’m in a silly mood today.

Well, of course they do, you son of a bitch. That’s the whole point. But now that everybody and their dog in Medicine Hat knows what a worthless bag of maggot shit Jeremy Allan Steinke is, he wants his trial moved to another venue. Maybe he’s hoping to get his trial moved to someplace where murdering sacks of shit that screw little girls aren’t seen in such a nasty, intollerant light. 🙄

Hell, for all I know, he’s hoping to get it moved to London in the hope that he’ll find himself in front of Jerkweed Jack Carrol… But that’s another rant, isn’t it?

For those of you that have been living under a rock for the last year, Steinke is the diddler who helped Jasmine Richardson murder her parents, Marc and Debra Richardson, and 8-year old little brother, Jacob, in Medicine Hat in April of ’06. Jasmine has already been found guilty of three counts of first degree murder back in July and now Stinky is trying to get his trial moved to someplace where the heat isn’t on so much:

Jeremy Allan Steinke, 24, who once described himself as a 300-year-old werewolf, appeared in a local courtroom Thursday.

He is charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Marc and Debra Richardson and their eight-year-old son, Jacob, who were found stabbed to death in their blood-smeared suburban home on April 23, 2006.

The killings made national headlines in part because Steinke’s co-accused was his 13-year-old former girlfriend.

[…]

Steinke’s Calgary lawyer, Alain Hepner, said Thursday he is concerned about the publicity the high-profile case has generated already through the girl’s trial.

Jurors in that trial were never shown websites entries from vampirefreaks.com where she called herself “killer kitty” and where Steinke, a high school dropout, claimed to be a 300-year-old lycan, or werewolf.

Jasmine, meanwhile, is trying to milk that 2-for-1 presentence credit for time served for all it’s worth…

CALGARY – Sentencing is being delayed until fall for a 13-year-old girl convicted of murdering a Medicine Hat family.

Psychiatric and pre-sentencing reports ordered by Justice Scott Brooker for the girl’s Aug. 23 sentencing date are taking more time than expected, according to the girl’s defence lawyer.

Sentencing is now expected to take place in October, according to lawyer Tim Foster.

[…]

The girl, who cannot be identified under provisions of the Youth Criminal Justice Act, was tried in Medicine Hat’s Court of Queen’s Bench.

She was found guilty July 9 of three counts of first-degree murder in the slayings of Marc and Debra Richardson and their eight-year-old son. She is the youngest person in Canada convicted of multiple murder.

[…]

The girl faces a maximum 10-year youth sentence, with no more than six years in custody.

The rest of the sentence would be served under supervision in the community. When the sentence ends, she will be free. Adult murderers are monitored for life.

A youth accused of murder must be at least 14 to be tried as an adult.

Why don’t we just cut the bullshit, ladies and gents? Try Stinky right the hell where he is and sentence Jasmine NOW. If she doesn’t like it, let her appeal. But at least the two-fer credit will stop and then maybe, just maybe, we can keep her locked up until she’s old enough to drink. Not that I’m going to hold my breath…

As an interesting side note: the Wikipedia article, “Richardson family murders” seems to not be there anymore…

[This post contains some language and subject matter that is not appropriate for children. Parents are advised.]

I wasn’t going to write anything today; I’m supposed to be on vacation — I figured, since I hadn’t taken any time in over a year and just got laid off, why the hell not? But the crap that I’ve been tripping over in my daily paper is just plain (you guessed it) gettin’ on my nerves.

First, there’s the bunch of lazy shitbags in TO that drank a little too deep of the Entitlement Koolaidâ„¢ and knifed a guy to death when he wouldn’t give them any change. It’s not like no one could have seen this bullshit coming, either; “aggressive panhandlers” have been becoming more and more of a problem in the Arsehole Of The Universe® for years now and every time someone dares to point out the fact that it IS a problem, the argumentum ad hominem flies fast and furious from all the usual suspects in TO’s Homeless Millâ„¢ industry. But for all that, it is still a problem, and the tax-dollar Pac-men know it too:

Earlier this year the mild mannered woman told a committee of Toronto councillors that when she asked a panhandler to leave the Tim Horton’s she owns, the panhandler slapped her across the face and cut her. She says her staff “don’t want to approach [panhandlers] at all anymore.”

And before some squawking dildo out there starts in with all the “you’re just a mean conservative, you don’t understand, etc, etc, ad nauseum” bullshit, there’s a little something that you need to know about me. I don’t admit this very often because, quite frankly, I’m ashamed of it but here it is anyway:

I used to be homeless at one time.

That’s right, I lived on the street for nearly a year once. So, before all those self-righteous buggers out there sitting on your comfortable little arses start condemning me as an ignorant meanie, consider for a moment that I just might know one hell of a lot more of what I’m talking about than you do. Or ever will.

Did I beg for change from strangers on the corner? Not on your life. I’d rather cut my own nuts off. I didn’t beg, I didn’t steal and I didn’t do dope. I managed to survive, get by, and get the hell out of there, and I did it without any free sleeping bags or crack pipes. There are a whole bunch of misconceptions filthy lies that the homeless industry (and don’t fool yourself: it IS an industry) has perpetuated for years that need to be shot down.

And I’m in the mood for some skeet…

LIE#1: They’re victims of circumstance
Bullshit. The vast majority of these buggers aren’t downtrodden victims of a heartless system; they live on the streets because they choose to! Yeah, you read that right. They choose to live on the streets because, on the streets, you can do whatever stupidity you damned well please; the bar is so low that you don’t have to worry about disappointing anybody, not even yourself…
Wanna spend your days stoned stoopid, doing bugger all? No problem. Anybody that points out what a screwup you’re being is just an asshole that “doesn’t understand life on the street.”
Wanna rip something/someone off? No problem. They have something you don’t, so they’re better off than you, so they can spare it. Besides, if they really wanted to keep it, they’d have locked it up better. And if they don’t hunt you down and stomp a mudhole in your ass for it, well, that just shows what suckers they were to begin with.
Feel like banging/getting blown by half a dozen chicks today? No problem. Their expectations are just as low as yours and if somebody points out that they’re being slutty, they’ll get condemned for trying to stifle the poor girl’s sexuality, complete with the full “it’s my body, blah, blah, blah” rant. Throw in a “Patriarchal Oppressionâ„¢” reference for good measure.
Feel like kicking the shit out of someone that pissed you off? No problem. The rules are different on the street, don’tcha know? And the pigs really need to learn to mind their own business.

LIE#2: They’re hungry
Bullshit. When’s the last time you heard of someone starving to death in Canada? I haven’t heard of it either. As far as I know, there isn’t a single God damned city anywhere in Canada that doesn’t have food banks, soup kitchens, a Sally Ann, or some other place to get a meal. Most cities have a shitload of ’em. These assholes aren’t hungry, they’re just sober. And they don’t like it.

LIE#3: It’s not their fault because they have addictions
So God damned what?? If you’re addicted to something, it’s only one person’s fault: YOURS! YOU are the one that decided to pop those pills, mainline that speed or suck on that glass dick. YOU did that, not somebody else. It’s YOUR fault. YOU dug the hole that you’re in. You say you want help to get off the stuff? Fine. But there’s a couple of things that YOU are damned well going to have to do before I’ll even bother listening to you:
First, you have to damn well prove to me that you mean it. Yeah, you heard me: PROVE IT! Get off your lazy ass and DO something to prove to me that you’re serious because, unlike those soft-headed, social worker idiot types, I’m a little too damned street-smart to take a junkie at his word. For anything.
Second, you — yes, YOU — are the one that’s going to have to do all the hard work. Get that through your head. Nobody is going to fix you; you’re damned well going to have to fix yourself.

LIE#4: They’re mentally ill
No, they aren’t. The mentally ill make up, by my observation (and I’m someone that would know), less than 5% of the so-called “street people” that you see bugging you for change every day. I can think of only one homeless person that I see regularly in the city of London who is, beyond any doubt, crazy as a shithouse rat. The vast majority of panhandlers are either late teen/early 20s buttmunches looking to score some cash to get high on later, or else they’re middle aged drunks, jonesing for a jug of ale. I know this because I see them emptying out their piles of change onto the bar. Yes, that’s right: I go drinking in the same places that most of you buggers criticizing me would be scared shitless to even walk past, let alone enter.

LIE#5: They CAN’T get jobs
Bullshit. It isn’t that they CAN’T get jobs, it’s that they WON’T get jobs. There’s a bunch of sub-lies that go along with this one: they can’t get clothes, no one will hire you when you can’t shower, there is no work to get. All bullshit. Let’s take ’em one at a time, shall we?
They can’t get clothes… Even in the town where I grew up (population: a piddling 3000), there was a Sally Ann store where you could get clothing for free if you needed it. And not all thrift store clothing is crap, either. I once got a three piece suit and an Armani tie (yes, Armani) at a thrift store, so don’t tell me that there’s nothing there. Getting a pair of jeans, shirt and work boots is a no-brainer.
Showers… Please piss off with this one. I was on the street during one of the most humid summers I can remember and nobody smelled me coming. There are all kinds of shelters, mens’ missions, Sally Anns and other places where you can get shower and even do your laundry. Most of ’em serve meals, too (see LIE#2).
There is no work for them… Again, piss off. There was work to be had, even in the middle of a recession, there’s honest work to be had now. There was a place in London — it used to be down on Marshall Street, I don’t know if it’s still there or if it’s moved — called the “Casual Labour Office.” All kinds of companies, from factories to small construction contractors, would come in every day looking for someone to hire for the day. Some of it was minimum wage, some wasn’t. If you did a good job that day, you might get called back by the same company, maybe even hired on permanently.

Casual Labour opened the doors at 7am every day. The lineup would start forming at somewhere around midnight. To this day, I have no idea how many nights I slept on that sidewalk. There was a stack of flattened-out cardboard boxes that we kept tucked around the corner so we wouldn’t have to sleep on the concrete. When it rained or snowed, we’d move and take shelter in the parking garage across the alley (long since torn down for a co-op), always keeping in mind our numbers in line.

I did that for nearly a year, saving every spare cent until I had enough for first & last on an apartment and a bit to float me until I could find a permanent job. But I did it, and so can they. The difference is that they choose not to. I have a T-shirt that reads “Yes, I have plenty of change, you homeless piece of shit, thanks for asking.”

I wear it for a reason.

The so-called “homeless advocates” aren’t advocates of anything except keeping themselves firmly locked on the government teat. They need these people to look pathetic so that they can keep their cushy, overpaid jobs. The best way to get people off the street is to make living on the street actually suck. That means no free sleeping bags, no free pipes and no spare change. Anything less is being part of the problem.

I was going to go off on a rant about something else, too but this is getting kind of long-winded. I’ll do the rest later…

Let the hate mail begin…

I’ve seen a lot of odd stuff in my life but this not only takes the cake, it quite frankly creeps the hell out of me. Never thought I’d see the army called out for something like this; not in this country, at least. The Freeps and the TO Red Star seem to be the only ones that have picked this up so far but look to hear more of it as word gets around.

It seems that a couple of kids were with their mom walking the family pooch on Friday along a creek that crosses Inadale Drive between Strathroy and Mt. Brydges (not sure about the name of it yet but the locals seem to just call it “crayfish creek”) and they stumbled on… two antitank mines!

That’s right. Two God damned landmines — like the one in the photo on the right, taken at the scene — were found in the creek right by a culvert that a buttload of people drive over every day.

We’ll start off with what the Freeps had to say about it today:

The potential for devastation was evident yesterday as a military team detonated the mines from a safe distance.

The force of the blast ripped bark and limbs from a tree and sprayed water so high it could be seen by observers a kilometre away.

“I could feel the percussive force,” Overdulve said, “It was 100 times louder than any fireworks you ever heard.”

Seven centimetres thick and 25 centimetres in diameter, the mines appear to be the kind used to disable tanks.

“We can’t definitively prove that, but that is the direction we are leaning,” Overdulve said.

After the detonation, the explosives experts found debris “consistent with timers,” he said.

The first mine was found Friday afternoon by nearby resident Lynn Denning, who walked to the creek with her two teenage daughters so that their yellow lab, Jesse, could enjoy the cold water.

“It’s upsetting,” she said.

While Inadale is a two-lane country road, many residents cross the culvert to commute to London, Denning said.

“There’s quite a lot of traffic during the week,” said Denning, who commutes to work at London Health Sciences Centre.

The family called Strathroy-Caradoc police, who sought help from the OPP, who called in the explosive ordinance disposal team from CFB Base Borden.

The explosives team left its base 100 kilometres north of Toronto at 6:20 a.m. yesterday.

“We responded quickly — we take this matter quite seriously,” said Capt. Cheryl Swarbrick, a base spokesperson.

Their presence was soon felt and heard on a normally quiet, tree-lined road.

“I’ve seen hand grenades and ammunition, but I never encountered anything like this,” Overdulve said.

Until a year ago, Overdulve lived near the creek, taking his three kids there to fish so often, they called it “crayfish creek.”

“This area is typically occupied by children, who come here to play,” he said.

The Red Star, of course, took their usual “nothing to see here, folks, move along” stance. You know; the same one they take every time something happens that has the potential to suggest that those on the Right side of the political spectrum just might be right about the idea of national security…

“It would be very premature to say how they might have got there,” Overdulve said. Around 1 p.m. after inspection, the military detonated what they describe as possible anti-tank devices – a type of land mine capable of damaging or destroying tanks or other armoured vehicles.

Investigators are unsure whether the suspected land mines were modern or from a bygone military era. “It’s possible that the ordnance is quite old,” Overdulve said. All the debris was collected and sent for analysis, with results expected within the next two weeks.

Bygone military era, my lilly-white ass. Dawdling around and leaving antitank mines all over southwestern Ontario has never been a part of the Canadian Armed Forces’ training and exercises regimen. 🙄

Meanwhile, over at Canada Free Press, Judi McLeod seems to be the only one asking the right questions, out loud:

The big question about two live landmines found in a countryside culvert running under Inadale Drive between Strathroy and Mt. Brydges, Ontario yesterday is who put them there?

Appearing to be attached to timers, the landmines were likely of the type used to blow up tanks, according to Strathroy-Caradoc police.

[…]

The Strathroy and Mt. Bridges communities are 20 kilometres west of London, Ont. and 30 kilometres from the former Military Camp Ipperwash (also Camp Ipperwash, a former Canadian Armed Forces training facility, now held by Stoney Point First Nation natives.

The only other military base in the area was CFB Clinton, about 40 kilometres away [actually, Judi, it’s more like 100 kliks away -Dennis], shut down some 36 years ago, and CFB London, about 20 kilometres away and downsized some 15 years ago

Let’s face it, boys and girls, the friggin’ Mine Fairy didn’t leave those things there. And there are two things that suggest to me that they haven’t been there for very damned long:

1. They were submerged in water, but not for so long that they couldn’t still go off. And as one Korean War vet told me once, in the winter time the pressure from expanding ground frost (or in this case, solid ice) will often set mines off.
2. The size of them. Earlier AV/AT mines were damned big things. They had to be, simply because the kind of compact, high-efficiency explosives that we can find today hadn’t been developed yet. Most accounts put these things found in the creek as being discs about 20cm across and about 6cm thick. That’s small for an AV/AT device.

No matter how hard I try, I can’t get that little voice in the back of my head to shut the hell up. You know the voice I’m talking about; you might have one yourself. The one that keeps saying, “They said we were a target. Even before we sent troops to Afghanistan, they came right out and said we were on their hit list. And everybody knows that they always try to do a dry run first…”

Is that nagging little voice wrong? Am I just being paranoid? I sure as hell hope so.