Archive for: January 2008

Well, this dude’s managed to bash the nail right on the head, hasn’t he? (a big ol’ tip o’ the toque to Hunter for bringing this to my attention in the first place) Now, if someone could just explain to me why it is that this Brit seems so much more concerned with our freedom of speech than most of the Canucks that I bump into lately…

I’ve been bitching and bellyaching for a long time about the abuses delivered by Canada’s infamous Human Lefts Commissions. Yes, you read that right: “Lefts” commissions. Calling them “rights” commissions is sheer stupidity requiring mental acrobatics of doublethink that would give George Orwell a nasty hangover. These commissions have nothing to do with human rights. What they’re about is trampling people’s rights in order to promote Leftist ideology.

This guy seems to have that figured out; why don’t the rest of us?

Oh, wait… that’s already been done.

To the surprise of absolutely no one who finds themselves in possession of two brain cells to rub together, Toronto Mayor David Miller has once again hopped up on the “blame the inanimate object” bandwagon and is bawling into every microphone he can find for a Canada-wide ban on handguns. Because, as everyone knows, criminal scumbags don’t shoot people, guns just jump up and fire themselves. Yup, one second they’ll just be sitting there and the next, they’re bustin’ caps all over the place. Happens all the time, right?

But Miller just can’t seem to get it through that spongy skull of his that we don’t have a gun control problem in this country; we have an asshole control problem. (more…)

…and learn some self-discipline while you’re at it.

For those of you that managed to snooze through it (I know I almost did, so don’t feel bad), the uberbullshit machine over at the New York Times recently puked up a load of crap that suggests, in not so subtle terms, that American veterans have a murderous bent to them:

Across America, Deadly Echoes of Foreign Battles

[…]

Town by town across the country, headlines have been telling similar stories. Lakewood, Wash.: “Family Blames Iraq After Son Kills Wife.” Pierre, S.D.: “Soldier Charged With Murder Testifies About Postwar Stress.” Colorado Springs: “Iraq War Vets Suspected in Two Slayings, Crime Ring.” Individually, these are stories of local crimes, gut-wrenching postscripts to the war for the military men, their victims and their communities. Taken together, they paint the patchwork picture of a quiet phenomenon, tracing a cross-country trail of death and heartbreak.

The New York Times found 121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one, after their return from war. In many of those cases, combat trauma and the stress of deployment – along with alcohol abuse, family discord and other attendant problems – appear to have set the stage for a tragedy that was part destruction, part self-destruction.

Gimme a God damned break. Pure and utter bullshit but hey, the Leftbots that NYT never were ones to let the truth get in the way of a good cheap shot, were they?

I’m not the only one that got his/her back up over this vile slur. The right-wing blogoshpere and media (that would be Fox News) has, quite rightly (no pun intended, really), gone somewhat apeshit. No criticism of that here. The responses have ranged from eloquent to apoplectic, so I’m going to try to limit myself to citing the better angels of our collective nature. Without doubt, the best one I’ve found so far is from Winds Of Change; a big ol’ tip o’ the toque for some damned find number crunching on this one, lads…

The only reference I could find for the number of troops who have served in combat areas was at GlobalSecurity.com, citing a Salon article:

Three and a half years have passed since U.S. bombs started falling in Afghanistan, and ever since then, the U.S. military has been engaged in combat overseas. What most Americans are probably unaware of, however, is just how many American soldiers have been deployed. Well over 1 million U.S. troops have fought in the wars since Sept. 11, 2001, according to Pentagon data released to Salon. As of Jan. 31, 2005, the exact figure was 1,048,884, approximately one-third the number of troops ever stationed in or around Vietnam during 15 years of that conflict.

From the October 1, 2001 start of the Afghanistan war, that’s about 26,000 troops/month. To date (Jan 2008) that would give about 1.99 million.

That means that the NY Times 121 murders represent about a 7.08/100,000 rate.

Now the numbers on deployed troops are probably high – fewer troops from 2001 – 2003; I’d love a better number if someone has it.

But for initial purposes, let’s call the rate 10/100,000, about 40% higher than the calculated one.

Now, how does that compare with the population as a whole?

Turning to the DoJ statistics, we see that the US offender rate for homicide in the 18 – 24 yo range is 26.5/100,000.For 25 – 34, it’s 13.5/100,000.

The moral of the story? Simple:

If you’ve got a kid under the age of 25 and want to reduce the chance of him becoming a murderer by a whopping 62 to 73%… get his ass in the army.

’nuff said

To all the nervous Nellies and assorted other naysayers who were eeking and shrieking that arming border guards was a suicidal idea and that the mean nasty Stephen Dubya Harper Evil Rightwing Government were just fearmongering, because nothing bad ever happens at one of OUR border crossings…

Blow it out yer social programs.

The Canadian Press put out a story yesterday about an incident that happened on August 4th of last year, just after Canadian border guards started being gun-totin’…

Officer Grant Patterson immediately shouted: “Don’t reach for it! Exit the vehicle with your hands where I can see them. Do it now!,” says the censored report, obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.

The 27-year-old burly man co-operated, and a further search of the car turned up a second concealed weapon, a loaded pump-action shotgun.

A bulge observed in the man’s rear pocket suggested he might be concealing even more weapons, prompting another officer, Christopher Van Nes, to draw his sidearm – the first time a Canadian border guard has done so on the job.

The man was ordered to the ground and handcuffed. He was not carrying a weapon, but a thorough search of his vehicle turned up ammunition, a bullet-proof vest, a double-edge dagger, a black SWAT-style balaclava, and other gun paraphernalia in addition to the loaded 40-calibre pistol from the glove compartment.

“The overall picture formed from the contents of the vehicle in my mind was that of someone planning to use firearms for a purpose dangerous to the public,” Patterson wrote of the Aug. 4 incident.

No shit, Sherlock. Wherever he was goin’, he sure as hell weren’t lookin’ to play tiddlywinks. So just what do you think might have happened if this clown actually had been the only one there packing any firepower? Would he have behaved himself (sort of) and gotten down on the ground to be cuffed without too much fuss? Or would he have tried to blast his way out of there, secure in the knowledge that no one else at the scene would be able to shoot back? Hell, for that matter, would there even have been any guards there at all?? Anybody else remember this little farce…?

A police chase near the Canada-U.S. border forced the closure of the Peace Arch border crossing south of Vancouver for hours on Tuesday.

It also caused dozens of Canadian guards to walk off the job, fearing for their safety.

The incident started when two men, both murder suspects, tried to get into Canada. Officials say the two men, 38-year-old Ishtiaq Hussain and 22-year-old Jose Antonio Barajas, are now in custody. They are wanted on murder charges in California.

Face it, Cukier & Co.; arming those boys paid off.

If you ever needed any proof that the HypoGrits and assorted other Leftbots have shoved this country through the looking glass, you got plenty of it lately. While the warm, fuzzy, colon-myopic “progressives” purr on and on about how wonderful our “justice” system is (inexhaustibly echoed by their fellow travelers in the MSM, such as the Ministry Of What You Should Think), the emperor’s dick is still swing in the wind. Two recent cases do more to make this argument than I ever could…

First, there is the tragic death of yet another innocent young girl in the Arsehole Of The Universeâ„¢. The senseless killing of Stefanie Rengel at the hands of some murdering little sonofabitch whose name we aren’t allowed to know, because the little bastard was FIVE DAYS shy of his eighteenth birthday, has brought about yet another chorus of “something must be done” from the sheeple in the Big Smoke.

Excuse me all to hell for being the cynical asshole here, but I’ve heard all this shit before. I heard it when Jordan Manners died. I heard it when Jane Creba died. I heard it when [fill in the blank] died. Every time a kid gets killed, the City That Never Thinks® farts its indignation for a few days and then goes back to sleep. They moan on that “something should be done,” howl about how screwed up the system is, and demand that changes need to be made. Then they go back to sleep and vote for the same pricks that created the problem in the first place. Why the hell should this time be any different? Do any of us even bothering hoping that things will change this time, when they never did before? I’m not the only one asking this…

You can add the name Stefanie Rengel to the already enormous list of those stolen from us.

And what the heck are we going to do about it? Any outrage out there? Anybody planning a mass protest for tougher justice at Parliament Hill?

If we do nothing as usual, the next name to be added is out there right now, dreaming about his or her bright future.

Hopefully, it’s not your kid — but he or she will be somebody’s. In my 17 years as a reporter at this newspaper, there have been more than 1,000 homicides in Toronto, so I am pretty sure there will be more. Needless to say little has been learned — and even less done.

Well, maybe. Maybe, just maybe, this time just might be different…

The stabbing death of a 14-year-old girl in Toronto this week, and the subsequent murder charges against two teenage acquaintances, opens a year in which Canada’s youth justice law will come under intense legal and political scrutiny.

Parliament is expected to vote in 2008 on legislation to radically toughen the Youth Criminal Justice Act by increasing sentences for serious youth crimes and making it easier for judges to keep young people locked up before their trials if they are considered a risk to public safety.

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson has also promised this year a sweeping review of the entire YCJA, a controversial law long criticized for being too soft on teenagers who commit violent or repeat offences.

And the Supreme Court of Canada is expected to announce a decision on whether two clauses of the YCJA violate the Constitution. The clauses would put the onus on violent young offenders to prove why they shouldn’t be sentenced as adults, or to have their names published.

If the country’s highest court upholds those clauses, the Conservative government will likely be emboldened to press forward with an election promise to impose automatic adult jail terms on teenagers, 14 and older, convicted of serious crimes.

At least it would be a start. Now all we have to do is toughen up the treatment of the full-grown scumbags. Not that it will make much difference to the worthless sacks of shit that killed Stefanie, but at least it would be something.

Oh, but wait… all those partisan hack judges that the Grits stacked the courts with are still around to bugger up the works. Screw what the public wants or what’s good for the country, it’s the unelected judges that make the rules, right…?

But if the court strikes down the adult sentencing clauses, as many legal scholars expect it will, there could be a showdown between the court and the government on the subject of youth crime – a tricky political issue in what may become an election year.

“As we wait for the Supreme Court’s ruling on the case, Canada’s judiciary seems set on a collision course with the legislative branch of government,” says Rishi Hargovan, writing recently on The Court.ca, an online Supreme Court discussion forum hosted by Osgoode Hall Law School.

[…]

In 2003, when prosecutors asked for an adult sentence for a 17-year-old Hamilton youth convicted of manslaughter, the lower courts said no. That case is currently before the Supreme Court.

The Ontario Court of Appeal, bolstered by a separate ruling by the Quebec Court of Appeal, said the law violated the Charter of Rights. It said the onus should be on the Crown to show evidence why an adult sentence is necessary, rather on the youth to prove otherwise.

The Ontario and Quebec courts also said the Constitution guarantees young offenders a separate system of youth justice, with its reduced set of penalties and its emphasis on rehabilitation.

And just where the FUCK does the Constitution say THAT???? Oh, wait… that must be one of those things that some shithead judge someplace “read into” the Constitution.

We’ll just have to wait and see (yet AGAIN) if anything gets done. I’m not holding my breath. But if you think that our “justice” is only busy looking out for the garbage in over-liberal Ontario, think again. Things are just as FUBAR out west…

It’s now getting reported that a guy from Langdon, Alberta might himself getting hauled before the Kangaroo Kourt for having the gall to defend himself and his girlfriend from a pair of masked assholes that burst into his bedroom in the middle of the night.

Why the hell can I never be making this stuff up? Just once, that’s all I’m asking for…

“It is a homicide; (the intruder) didn’t die accidentally. Whether or not it’s murder isn’t clear.”

Gang and drug ties have been ruled out as motives in the case, said Neely, and no one involved is a “well-known, hardened criminal,” she said.

Okay, lemme see if I’ve got all this happy bullshit straight in my wee, tiny, disadvantaged, non-leftbotuniversityeducated melon or not…

• No drug ties? Check.
• No gang ties? Check.
• Nobody (especially the homeowner) a “well-known, hardened criminal?” Check.
• Guy wakes up in the middle of the night to find a pair of masked shitbags in his bedroom with him and his sleeping girlfriend and does what any normal, non-testosterone-challenged human male would do? Check.

And still, he might be the one with his ass in the box?

“The two assailants entered the bedroom where the victims had been sleeping and a struggle ensued in the bedroom and that’s where (the body of) one assailant was discovered,” said Strathmore RCMP Cpl. Patty Neely.

[…]

The male occupant of the house was also injured and is listed in stable condition. Police say they are now trying to determine whether or not to lay murder charges against the him.

“Obviously, we know how he became deceased. Whether or not it’s a homicide or murder investigation or simply (a case of) protecting yourself will be determined,” said Neely.

Under the law, people have the right to protect themselves and their property within certain limits. The criminal code states that the victim of an unprovoked attack is justified in repelling force by force if it is “not intended to cause death or grievous bodily harm” and is no more than necessary for self defence.

WTF is that bullshit?? I don’t know if things have changed or not but there’s a principle that I learned back in the stone age when I was going to school. It went something like this: If a man attacks you with his hands, you can defend yourself with a stick. If he attacks you with a stick, you can defend yourself with a knife. If he attacks you with a knife, a gun isn’t an unreasonable means of defending yourself.

Apparently, if you wake up in the middle of the night and find a prair of masked malcontents standing over you, you’re expected to call a timeout so you can take the time to Monday morning quarterback yourself for an hour or two.

Yeah, right. Not this kid.

On the bright side, though: not everybody’s a friggin’ idiot in this country. While the Hug-A-Thug Brigade® pisses and moans about all the mean, nasty evil things that decent folks do to the poor, disadvantaged, misunderstood shitbags in our midst, Bob and Betty Lunchbox don’t seem to give a damn what those buggers are wailing about (tip o’ the hat to JR for the poll and pic). Click on the pic and you’ll see that a whopping 97% of people couldn’t give a rat’s ass about Leftbotâ„¢ bullshit, scumbag “rights,” or even the law, when it comes to keeping their loved ones safe. Screw the consequences, it’s one hell of a lot better to be judged by twelve than it is to be carried by six.

For the record: I agree. Break into my house and pose a danger to my woman or kids, and you’re gonna find yourself on the wrong end of a 12-gauge. You will shut your God damned mouth and do exactly as I say, and do it damned quick, or you’ll die on my floor. That’s my God-given right, whether the law says so or not.

MY home, MY castle, your sorry ass.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a law-abiding kind of guy. I believe in the law and I respect the men and women who put their asses on the line to uphold it each and every day. But if you pose a threat to the ones I love… well, then, the rulebook goes out the window. Along with a few chunks of your grey matter.

And no, I won’t lose any sleep over it.

Something else I pilfered from elsewhere in the blogosphere. Damn, this blogger’s block thing is getting easier…