No matter how you slice it, this is more good than bad. Yes, Avi Lewis is downright embarrassing in his blatant idiocy in comparing “fundamentalist Christianity” and the USA with countries that have the boot of Sharia law on their necks but hey, I got used to being embarrassed by the Ministry Of What You Should Think a looooong time ago…

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is, in all probability, more qualified to speak on the topic of Islam and Islamofascism than any other woman in the Western world. It’s absolutely wonderful watching her occasionally rolling her eyes while Lewis gets more and more flustered as she methodically picks his idiocy to its bones with a calm and grace that is all too often lacking in public discourse on this subject (and yes, I know I’m guilty of going off half-cocked myself, every couple of minutes now and then).

I think the best probably has to be her blunt statement, “there is no Islamophobia, it’s a myth.” Check out the vid for yourself (you can download it here, if you have trouble viewing it in your browser)… (more…)

Sorry for being so quiet lately, folks, but being out of work again (damn place shut down just after they called me back from layoff…) means that I don’t have a hell of a lot of time to devote to the site lately. Every now and then, though, I do manage to stumble across something that isn’t just worth posting, it’s also a short enough post to type out that I can afford the time to do it.

I could go on more, but I’ll just let the Ottawa Sun’s Earl McRae tell it in his own words. Get your wallets out, kids, this is worth it…

Who’ll jump into the trenches for our noble vets?

Earl McRae
Wed, July 18, 2007

You are to be congratulated. Those of you who care and appreciate what our veterans of World War II did for the freedom and life you enjoy.

Those of you who realize that donating towards the cost of constructing a smoking room for them at the Perley and Rideau Veterans Health Centre is an absolutely infinitesimal reciprocation in comparison.

These aged, frail, Canadian patriots — once young and so brave — who fought in the most hellish conditions to preserve our way of life, and this new battle by us, for them, is the least we can do.

But just as they resolutely fought and didn’t give up, you, too, now need to show what Canadian stuff you are made of on their behalf by catapulting their drive to raise $70,000 over the top before the cold, harsh weather and, once again, they, the ones who smoke, are forced outside to indulge one of the few pleasures they have in the twilight of their years.

Men and women in their ’80s, even ’90s, who once proudly volunteered to wear the military uniform of their country for war against tyranny, and who now live at the Perley and Rideau, and who smoke, as is their choice, as is their right, as it was for the majority of their generation.

Only the brain-dead, self-righteous, fools among us would regard them as of lesser moral fibre, and to be socially shunned, because they partake in what is not illegal, and if that’s your feeling, I’d like to hear your smoking views on Albert Einstein, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Thomas Edison, Queen Juliana of the Netherlands, Pablo Picasso, Maurice Ravel, John Lennon: But a few of the greats in history who were inveterate smokers.

Last fall, because of Gord Bunke, a regular visitor at the Perley and Rideau who informed me of the situation, I began a campaign, through my column, of publicly raising the engineer-report-estimated $70,000 for the room that would be renovated to meet the stringent security and ventilation standards of the provincial government for facilities such as the Rideau and Perley.

The centre’s board of directors approved the project, but said it didn’t have the money, that the vets would have to fund it themselves. The vets — on small, fixed, pensions, not at all wealthy.

Hear me out, you who care, and have donated, you who should care, and haven’t donated.

Victory for our vets is close. The final push is on. Paul Finn, head of the Perley and Rideau Foundation, says $58,000 has been donated/pledged by individual donors, businesses and area Legion branches. Only $12,000 away from victory.

Says Finn: “There’ve been individual donations from $5 and $10, right up to $1,000 and more. Lorenzo’s Restaurant (on Arch St.) donated $3,000. It’s all saying to the vets ‘You did so much for us, we’ll do this for you’.”

Greg Fougere, executive director of the health centre, is hoping work on the room can begin in August to open in the early fall. “Before the bad weather comes.”

It has been a slow, tough, slog to win this war for our vets. Not unlike some of the battles they waged in World War II.

The emergence of a sugar daddy would be nice. Someone of heart willing to make a sizeable, vanquishing, donation, so that our precious vets are not again made to go outside to endure the elements.

Fougere says the word will go out to different contractors in the field, but reveals the job does not have to be tendered. “If a contractor came to us with an offer, we’d certainly be open to listening. This can be done for $70,000 to meet requirements, and we’re going to do it.”

And, I say, even better if a contractor dug into the goodness of his heart and offered to absorb or reduce normal costs in the interest of the great and noble cause.

Won’t you fall in behind the vets in the final assault? Please. You are needed.

Send your cheques, your money — and specify it’s for the vets’ smoking room — to Paul Finn, managing director, Perley and Rideau Veterans Health Centre Foundation, 1750 Russell Rd., Ottawa, ON K1G 526. Paul Finn’s phone number: 613-526-7173.

And these are the assholes that Jumpin’ Jack!off Layton wants us to negotiate with?? Thank God that ignoramus prick wasn’t alive in 1939… 🙄 Jerkweed Jack seems to be of the opinion that we can just have ourselves a nice little sit-down with a bunch of medeival skin-stogie-smokers (figure it out) and work out all our little differences over a couple o’ pints.

Bullshit.

These are the same gutless assholes that treated women worse than dogs and hide behind civilians like the gutless shits that they are. There’s a real simple reason why the Taliban and their ilk are relying so heavily on roadside bombs: every damned time that they try to come on out and actually face our boys, they get their asses handed to them.

So what do they do? They hide in their little caves, come out every now and then to plant bombs, and then run away. Oh, yeah… and they try to recruit kids to do the stuff that they don’t have the balls to do themselves…

KABUL — Fourteen-year-old Rafiqullah said the men at the Pakistani madrassa showed him and two classmates videos of suicide attackers. They taught the boys to drive a car and let them ride motorcycles. Then the militants gave Rafiqullah his mission: kill an Afghan governor.

The teenager walked eight hours over the porous border from Pakistan to the eastern Afghan city of Khost, where a man named Abdul Aziz tried to pump up his courage, Rafiqullah said. Aziz gave him an explosives-laden vest and the teen confessed his fears.

“I said I was afraid to carry out the suicide attack and Abdul Aziz pointed a gun at me and said, ‘I’ll kill you if you don’t,’ ” Rafiqullah said while in the custody of Afghan authorities over the weekend.

Oh, yeah; we can negotiate with these buggers, alright. Dickheads.

And it’s not like this is the first time that these gutless shitweasels have tried a stunt like this, is it? Anybody out there remember Juma Gul? Maybe you don’t, but I do. He was only SIX YEARS OLD when the Taliban tried to talk him into blowing himself to confetti around some ISAF soldiers. Luckily for him, Juma may have been born at night (I don’t know for sure) but he sure as hell wasn’t born last night…

FORWARD OPERATING BASE THUNDER, Afghanistan (AP) — The story of a 6-year-old Afghan boy who says he thwarted an effort by Taliban militants to trick him into being a suicide bomber provoked tears and anger at a meeting of tribal leaders.

The account from Juma Gul, a dirt-caked child who collects scrap metal for money, left American soldiers dumbfounded that a youngster could be sent on such a mission. Afghan troops crowded around the boy to call him a hero.

Though the Taliban dismissed the story as propaganda, at a time when U.S. and NATO forces are under increasing criticism over civilian casualties, both Afghan tribal elders and U.S. military officers said they were convinced by his dramatic account.

Juma said that sometime last month Taliban fighters forced him to wear a vest they said would spray out flowers when he touched a button. He said they told him that when he saw American soldiers, “throw your body at them.”

[…]

“When they first put the vest on my body I didn’t know what to think, but then I felt the bomb,” Juma told The Associated Press as he ate lamb and rice after being introduced to the elders at this joint U.S.-Afghan base in Ghazni. “After I figured out it was a bomb, I went to the Afghan soldiers for help.”

Here’s an idea for ya, Jack!:
You want to negotiate with the Taliban? Fine. Send your wife to do it. If she comes back alive, we’ll all be real interested in what she has to say.

Okay, I know that London’s getting to be more and more like the ArseholeOf The Universeâ„¢ as the days and months go on but this is just a little too creepy, even by my admittedly somewhat cynical standards.

It seems like the whole damned tactical squad got called out about 11 o’clock last night and weren’t in the mood to take any shit.  I haven’t been able to get any real details on just what the hell happened yet, but judging by what the Freeps had to say this morning, those boys were definitely in full move-your-ass-we’re-not-screwing-around-here mode.

If anybody has any details, I’d be interested…

A flurry of police, including heavily armed tactical officers, swooped down on a London highrise late last night, catching some residents by surprise.

Residents said police arrived just before 11 p.m. and sealed off the 14th floor of one of the twin CityPlace towers, at 405 Waterloo St., near Dundas, and ordered no one be allowed up to that floor.

One resident said police were seen racing to the nearby Holiday Inn Express, and from there were visible in a stairwell window staring over at the highrise.

It wasn’t immediately clear what had triggered the heavy police response, and no one was available to comment.

A woman staying at the Holiday Inn said she went up the stairwell to see what was happening and came across two officers on the 10th-floor landing, wearing what she described as “big goggles.”

“I walked in and said, ‘Is everything OK? And they said, ‘Go downstairs,’ ” said hotel guest Ashley Morrison.

An officer was seen out on one of the 14th-floor balconies at the apartment building.

… And God damned good that it did, too. Sorry for not posting this sooner, but I’ve had me one hell of a busy day on Monday. For whoever hasn’t heard yet, the jury in Medicine Hat took less than four hours of deliberation to come to the same conclusion that everyone else with a brain in their head had already come to long ago:

Jasmine Richardson is guilty as sin.

MEDICINE HAT, Alta. (CP) – After deliberating for less than four hours, a Court of Queen’s Bench jury returned Monday with a decisive verdict for a 13-year-old girl accused in the grisly killings of her parents and little brother: guilty of first-degree murder on all three counts.

The accused began weeping silently and then put her hand over her mouth as the foreman of the seven-man, five-woman jury read out the verdicts. Her lawyer, Tim Foster, stared at the ground and appeared to be struggling even to look at his client, but then later moved to the prisoner’s box to put a comforting arm around her.

Minutes later, the jurors filed out of the courtroom one by one, a few stealing glances at the girl as they passed by her but most just looking away.

Looking away in disgust, no doubt. Can you blame them? This little bitch (and no, I don’t care how old she is; that’s still going easy on her in the language department after what she did) would be damn near enough to make me puke, too. The problem now is that she’s still not going to be properly punished for what she did. Commentor Ann pointed this out the other day:

[…] And I agree with your opinion on the YJA. What a joke. Though the verdict is now in, I doubt this little whore will do more than 3.5 years in custody (don’t forget she’ll be credited with 1.5 years of time served).

Actually, Ann, it’s even worse than that. According to reports, the court has scheduled the sentencing for Aug. 23, which means that Jasmine will have spent about 16 months of “dead time” (how’s that for ironic slang?) since her arrest in late April, 2006. This means that, under the bullshit 2-for-1 system that judges in this country use to credit time awaiting trial, she’ll be getting 32 months of credit for time served. In other words, she’ll be out and on the streets again no later than December, 2010. Just in time for Christmas, no doubt. And even that‘s assuming that her lawyer doesn’t pull some stunt to delay sentencing in order to rack up more 2-for-1 credit (not an unheard-of tactic).

Her family, however — her mother, father and eight-year old brother — will still be dead. But that won’t stop the pro-YCJA shitheads; hell, no! It won’t even slow ’em down. There’s already rumblings and bumping in the night going on in the dark corners of the Charter-heads…

But more in that later. For now, I’m gathering up some of the sleaze that the jury didn’t get to look at. Believe me folks, it makes you wonder how much faster they would have convicted her…

— MORE SOURCES —
canada.com
National Post
TO Star
Times Online (UK)
BBC News
Globe & Mail

[Updated and bumped, see below -D]

Those who stopped by yesterday already know that cops in TO are looking for a 16-year old “person of interest” in connection with the 37th and 38th Toronto homicides of 2007. Today, the cops released details, at about 10:30 or so this morning, on just who it is that they’re looking for (the original post on the Toronto Police Service site can be found here, while it lasts): 16-year old Livingston Davis is wanted as a suspect in two counts of homicide. Full text of the police release follows (click the photo for a larger image):

Homicides #37/2007 and #38/2007,
Update,
Judicial authorization permits identification of
Young Offender for five days,
Name and photograph of suspect released,
Livingston Davis, 16

Homicide Squad
416-808-7400

On Wednesday July 4, 2007, at about 3:50 a.m., police were called to a home on Rylander Boulevard regarding a shooting.

Police found a man, aged 34, inside the home and a man, aged 43, in a vehicle nearby, both with obvious signs of trauma.

The two men were taken to hospital, where they succumbed to their injuries.

See previous release.

Judicial authorization to identify the suspect, Livingston Davis, 16, has been granted in this case. That authorization prohibits any publication which identifies, or would tend to identify, him after 9:30 p.m., on Monday, July 9, 2007.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Homicide Squad at 416-808-7400, Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-TIPS (8477), or online at www.222tips.com.

Constable Isabelle Cotton, Public Information, for Detective Sergeant Pauline Gray, Homicide Squad

Keep your eyes peeled, folks; he’s out there somewhere…

UPDATE:
No time to do up a whole post on this right now, so I’ll just point you over to the Halls of Macadamia, where you can check out what Neo has on this little darling…