The Lasso of Truth

Isn't it amazing...

...That when it's good for their cause, it's "leaked" information, but when it's bad for their cause, it's an "illegal release" of information?

Almost as interesting as correspondence that was meant to be subject to FOI requests, suddenly being regarded as "private comments that were never intended to be public".

I bet Nixon felt the same way about some of the things he said...

h/t to the clearing house for everything Climategate-related.

Collective Madness

Union thugs want to ensure potential employer, Wal-Mart, will never open another store within the borders of Quebec, again...

The Supreme Court of Canada has upheld the right of Wal-Mart, the world’s biggest retailer, to shut down stores after workers unionized at one of its outlets in Jonquière, Que.

In a 6-3 decision, Justice Ian Binnie, citing previous case law, noted there is no legislation in Quebec that obliges any employer to remain in business, even if it closes for “socially reprehensible” reasons.

The store closure, which followed one of the first unionizations of Wal-Mart employees in North America, drew continent-wide attention and the high-stakes appeal has been closely watched by labour and business.

Laid-off workers at the store in Jonquière argued Wal-Mart violated Quebec labour laws and the workers’ constitutional rights by shutting its store during negotiations for an inaugural collective agreement in 2005.

A majority of the Supreme Court judges rejected their appeal. They ruled that under the specific section of the Quebec Labour Code that formed the basis of the workers complaints, the workers cannot seek remedy if their former place of employment no longer exists.

Had the workers brought forward their case under a separate section of the Labour Code, namely sections 12 to 14, then the question of whether Wal-Mart closed the store as part of an anti-union strategy might have been put in play.

[..]

“This is not a substantive victory for employers in any way whatsoever,” said Dominique Monet, leader of the labour, employment and human rights practice at law firm Fasken Martineau in Montreal. “[The judges] have certainly shown them the right exit to take on the highway next time.”

If Wal-Mart is smart, they'll make sure there is no next time.

Too many mouths to feed

Less ice..?

Scientists say shrinking Arctic sea ice may be forcing some polar bears into cannibalizing young cubs.

"When (bears) are very hungry, they go looking for something to eat," biologist Ian Stirling said Friday.

...or just more bears to feed?

h/t

American Thanksgiving Pinup

After many years of being a faithful volunteer on various company social committees, I can certainly sympathize with the sentiments in the joke below.  It is truer than you know...

 Company Memo

  FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director
  TO: All Employees
  RE: Gala Christmas Party

I'm happy to inform you that the company Christmas Party will take place on December 23rd , starting at noon in the private function room at the Grill House. There will be a cash bar and plenty of drinks! We'll have a small band playing traditional carols... feel free to sing along. And don't be surprised if our CEO shows up dressed as Santa Claus! A Christmas tree will be lit at 1:00 PM. Exchanges of gifts among employees can be done at that time; however, no gift should be over $10.00 to make the giving of gifts easy for everyone's pockets. This gathering is only for employees!

Our CEO will make a special announcement at that time!

Merry Christmas to you and your family,

Patty
______________________________________________________________

  Company Memo

  FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director
  TO: All Employees
  DATE: October 2, 2009
  RE: Gala Holiday Party

In no way was yesterday's memo intended to exclude our Jewish employees. We recognize that Hanukkah is an important holiday, which often coincides with Christmas, though unfortunately not this year. However, from now on, we're calling it our "Holiday Party." The same policy applies to any other employees who are not Christians and to those still celebrating Reconciliation Day. There will be no Christmas tree and no Christmas carols will be sung. We will have other types of music for your enjoyment.

Happy now?

Happy Holidays to you and your family,

Patty
 _________________________________________________________________

  Company Memo

  FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director
  TO: All Employees
  DATE: October 3, 2009
  RE: Holiday Party

Regarding the note I received from a member of Alcoholics Anonymous requesting a non-drinking table, you didn't sign your name. I'm happy to accommodate this request, but if I put a sign on a table that reads, "AA Only", you wouldn't be anonymous anymore. How am I supposed to handle this?

Somebody?

And sorry, but forget about the gift exchange, no gifts are allowed since the union members feel that $10.00 is too much money and the executives believe $10.00 is a little chintzy.

REMEMBER: NO GIFTS EXCHANGE WILL BE ALLOWED.
______________________________________________________________

  Company Memo

  FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director
  To: All Employees
  DATE: October 4, 2009
  RE: Generic Holiday Party

What a diverse group we are! I had no idea that December 20 th begins the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which forbids eating and drinking during daylight hours. There goes the party! Seriously, we can appreciate how a luncheon at this time of year does not accommodate our Muslim employees' beliefs. Perhaps the Grill House can hold off on serving your meal until the end of the party or else package everything for you to take it home in little foil doggy baggy. Will that work?

Meanwhile, I've arranged for members of Weight Watchers to sit farthest from the dessert buffet, and pregnant women will get the table closest to the restrooms.

Gays are allowed to sit with each other. Lesbians do not have to sit with Gay men, each group will have their own table.

Yes, there will be flower arrangement for the Gay men's table.

To the person asking permission to cross dress, the Grill House asks that no cross-dressing be allowed, apparently because of concerns about confusion in the restrooms. Sorry.

We will have booster seats for short people.

Low-fat food will be available for those on a diet.

I am sorry to report that we cannot control the amount of salt used in the food . The Grill House suggests that people with high blood pressure taste a bite first.

There will be fresh "low sugar" fruits as dessert for diabetics, but the restaurant cannot supply "no sugar" desserts. Sorry!

Did I miss anything?!?!?

Patty
______________________________________________________________

   Company Memo

  FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director
  TO: All F*%^ing Employees
  DATE: October 5, 2009
  RE: The F*%^ing Holiday Party

I've had it with you vegetarian pricks!!! We're going to keep this party at the Grill House whether you like it or not, so you can sit quietly at the table furthest from the "grill of death," as you so quaintly put it, and you'll get your f*%^ing salad bar, including organic tomatoes. But you know, tomatoes have feelings, too. They scream when you slice them. I've heard them scream. I'm hearing them scream right NOW!

The rest of you f*%^ing wierdos can kiss my *ss. I hope you all have a rotten holiday!

Drive drunk and die,

The B*tch from H*ll!!!
 ______________________________________________________________

  Company Memo

  FROM: Joan Bishop, Acting Human Resources Director
  DATE: October 6, 2009
  RE: Patty Lewis and Holiday Party

I'm sure I speak for all of us in wishing Patty Lewis a speedy recovery and I'll continue to forward your cards to her.

In the meantime, management has decided to cancel our Holiday Party and give everyone the afternoon of the 23 rd off with full pay.

Happy Holidays!

Joan

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Just another stitch in the multicultural fabric?

Broadcasting in Canada is about to get a lot more diverse...

Al-Jazeera English, the English-language service of the Qatar-based broadcaster, has been approved for distribution via satellite in Canada.

Ethnic Channels Group Ltd., a Toronto-based satellite service, had applied in February to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission for permission to carry Al-Jazeera English.

On Thursday, the federal regulator approved the request, clearing the way for Al-Jazeera to be carried via digital satellite.

"The commission notes the substantial support for the addition of AJE to the digital lists and considers that AJE will expand the diversity of editorial points of view in the Canadian broadcasting system," the CRTC said in its decision.

"Further, despite concerns expressed by certain parties, there is nothing on the record of the current proceeding that leads the commission to conclude that AJE would violate Canadian regulations, such as those regarding abusive comment."

Coming to a terrorist sleeper cell near you.

The lights are on

...but they're tied up and gagged, in the basement...

While one would hope Houben was the unlucky winner of a terrifying medical lottery, situations like his may not be rare. Neurologist Steven Laureys, who performed the revealing brain scan on Houben, says that in 40 percent of supposedly vegetative patients he examined, brain scans revealed some level of consciousness. Both Houben and Laureys are advocating that doctors lean less on the Glasgow Scale and look more toward brain scans.

In a healthcare bureaucracy that wants to use rationingto alleviate healthcare costs, and embraces the concept of euthanizing the disabled, does anyone believe doctors will be encouraged to engage in a procedure where people in "vegetative" states are identified and rescued more frequently?

Obama's "push, not pull" moment

Remember when they said Obama would restore dignity to the office of the President, after the fiasco of the swaggering moron previously in residence..?

Monday night, Obama mistakenly left a White House ceremony honouring two activists' work in Zimbabwe. After finishing his remarks in the East Room, he walked with first lady Michelle Obama into the grand hallway across the main floor of the Executive Mansion. He returned a moment later, a bit sheepishly.

He said with a laugh, "I'm allowed to stay." Then he added, "I never know what I'm allowed to do."

Ya, me too.

Social Engineering

...through your warranty...

Apple is apparently telling at least some customers that the amount of cigarette smoke residue inside their computers makes it unsafe for the company to perform warranty service on them, despite the lack of such a clause in the company's warranty agreement.

One assumes though, that the trendy fascists at Apple have no objection to biscotti crumbs, shaking, and the adverse audio effects of progressive indy itunes files.

It's all about training your customer, Pavlovian-style.

A new mechanism for keeping the memory alive...

...or shallow exercise that trivializes a victim of genocide..?

"My name is Henio Zytomirski. I am seven-years-old. I live on 3 Szewska Street in Lublin," he writes on his profile. His birthday is March 25, 1933. He is no more than seven or eight years old. As a young Jewish boy, he was killed by the Nazis in a concentration camp.

Being an honest hater of all things "social media", my impulse is to consider this a violation of the sanctity of any memorials of the event.  But as the Holocaust slowly ebbs from living memory, with the last of it's survivors dying off, the need is arising to find a way to keep the scale of the atrocity real for generations to come.

via

Look what you find...

When you poke your head through a glory hole...

Anyway, I wanted you guys to know that you're free to use RC in any way you think would be helpful. Gavin and I are going to be careful about what comments we screen through, and we'll be very careful to answer any questions that come up to any extent we can. On the other hand, you might want to visit the thread and post replies yourself. We can hold comments up in the queue and contact you about whether or not you think they should be screened through or not, and if so, any comments you'd like us to include.

Wow.  Nice integrity you got there, boys.

From here to here.

Almost as messy as a 400kg polar bear hitting the pavement at high speed.

Weekend Pinup

~ Michael Totten contemplates the ramifications of a third war in Lebanon.  Which is a prospect that holds a special resonance with Canadians, after the fiasco amidst the last one.

~ In a different kind of war, a fierce blow has been struck against the forces of propaganda.  There is no better disinfectant than the bright light of day and I expect this one to turn into a rugged scrubbing.

~ Meanwhile, in the Land of Oz... "The big winners in last week's EU carve-up may not have famous names or stellar CVs – but that's what made them ideal candidates for their new jobs".  And why not?  That's how Barack Obama got his.  Only in the world of global governance does lack of qualifications or experience make you well suited for the job.  Doesn't that explain the entire Security Council?  And the Human Rights Council?  (As an aside, is that not the most unfortunate picture you've ever seen?)

~ Palin = Prejean?  I'm starting to get the impression that local conservative mouthpiece, Michael Coren, hasn't ever met a successful conservative woman he hasn't wanted to stuff back into the kitchen, barefoot, pregnant and adequately Bible-thumped.  There is nothing useful or laudable about condescending misogyny - especially when it serves only to alienate the few figures in the conservative ranks who actually have something to offer, to revitalize the movement.

~ In contrast, Rex Murphy steps up like a real man, who isn't afraid to offer credit to a lady who's earned it... "Ms. Palin is a real and evolving element in the great story of American politics. She is the “other half” of the Obama moment, and she may be in the ascendant. Mr. Obama is losing his lustre, his appeal is dimming, at the very moment the Alaskan outsider is staking her claim. Those who call her a joke are expressing an anxious hope not offering a rational description."  RTWT

~Not that Sarah Palin needs anyone to defend her honour, when her uterus does a fine job of it, all by itself...

Other readers pounced like wolf-sized Dobermans on an intruder. One guffawed, “That sentence by Sarah Palin could be entered into the annual Bulwer-Lytton bad writing contest. It could have a chance at winning a (sic) honorable mention, at any rate.”

But soon, the original contributor confessed: “I probably should have mentioned thatthe sentence quoted above was not written by Sarah Palin. It’s taken from the first paragraph of ‘Dreams From My Father,’ written by Barack Obama.”

Oh, snap!

~ Peripherally on the subject of uterus' (or is it uteri?)...Thoughtful reader, Rolf, sent me the not-so-safe-for-work news of a rather unique anti-sexual harassment protest, in Russia.  Jeepers, Rolf!  It's not even Christmas yet, and I didn't get you anything ;)

Well, no...

It's not a "death panel" per se, but at the end of all that rationing the end result is really the same...

The ideas for savings to the health care system are endless! We know already, of course, about the great new idea of not looking so closely at those breasts. What we don't know won't cause us anxiety, and if cancer should come, the later we discover it the better, because there is nothing like death to stop us from running to the doctor for every little thing.

...Isn't it?

H/T

"Your paradise. Their prison."

I was 20 years old, driving home from some night club and passed a billboard shouting these words out from an idyllic beach scene.  Cuba was the subject, and at the time I knew and cared nothing about the political and social ramifications of what most Canadians consider as nothing more than a cheap vacation.

That billboard propelled me to learn enough to know better.

Sadly, most Canadians’ attitudes towards the world’s most accepted dictatorship haven’t changed...

In Raul's Cuba, as in Fidel's, dissent remains punishable by indefinite imprisonment, unemployment is considered antisocial and the government can lock away anyone a summary trial finds guilty of "dangerousness," a legal catch-all.

Once incarcerated, political prisoners are denied medical care, family visits and legal aid. Solitary confinement is a common and seemingly arbitrary form of discipline.

It's an old hobby horse of mine.  In light of Barack Obama's calls to lift sanctions on the island prison, it seems I'll be riding this one for years to come.

Palin vs. Winfrey 2012

...Is the first thing I thought of, when I heard the news.

She's the "most influential woman in America".  Does anyone doubt she has the stones to make a bit for the White House?  And after the affirmative-action win of the Big O, does anyone doubt the distinct possibility that she could actually win?

Prepare for the next Big Black O campaign...

Hitchens on Hasan

...And the problem of making it our fault...

A paranoid or depressive person—of whom we have many millions in our midst—does not have to end up screaming religious slogans while butchering his fellow creatures. But a paranoid or depressive person who is in regular touch with a jihadist "spiritual leader" is presented with a ready-made script that offers him paradise in exchange for homicide.

Esse quam videri

Carrie Prejean needs to put on her "big girl" pants (or any, at all) and come to understand one very important fact of the big bad world out there...you should never put anything on film, that you wouldn't be willing to admit to in public.

To be perfectly frank, I don't give a hoot if she humped the entire high school football team and posted the video on YouTube.  She's a grown up, and she does it just like the rest of us (I presume).  A few tawdry nipple shots and a masturbatory display are hardly something that, in this day and age, one should be made to feel ashamed of.  What is striking is how little heat the men involved in this steamy flaying are taking, for the less-than-gallant action of releasing what was supposed to be a private correspondence.

The reason little miss poster-girl-for-traditional-marriage is having the constant vapors over this, is because both she and many of her supporters held her up as a paragon of virtue, pure as the driven snow and unimpeachable.  BIG MISTAKE.  She is obviously none of those things and because all of the focus was on presenting her in that light, the honest discussion that spawned from her pageant appearance is now lost in the scandal of cover up and equivocation around her reputation.

I thought it was really shabby, the way she was treated by the insufferable Perez Hilton and I think it was disgraceful that the pageant officials appeared to allow his bigotry to influence her win.  I also think the debate that sprung from her ordeal was an important one to have. 

It's a shame that not enough people of the puritanical Republican bent understand that honesty is a virtue held in much higher regard, by more people, than modesty.  And immodest behavior is not, on it's own, a good reason to disregard a person's character.

This is a young, attractive, single woman, who apparently likes to have sex.  She shouldn't be pretending she's not, and she shouldn't have to make apologies for it.  Now what she is guilty of is dishonesty and hypocrisy.  Those are both good reasons to cast her aside.

See?  Now that's how it's done!

Weekend Pinup

This week has been all about tyrants and stupidity...and I'm not just talking about work, now.  Though the same could be said there.

I mean the tyrants that you vote for (and some that you don't), along with the stupidity that you pay for...and the many who don't but bitch about it anyway.

It's been that kind of week...

~ Canada's prodigal son proves the apple doesn't fall far from the tree..."It's a particular thing to say one thing and then go on to do its opposite for 45 minutes. Yet such was the nature of Justin Trudeau’s speech yesterday afternoon at Concordia"  You mean something like mapping out a Charter of Rights and Freedoms while cozying up to murderous dictators in your spare time?  It would appear to be their family legacy.  Yet the Trudeau name still gets the deference of royalty in too many circles.

~ Meanwhile, the tyranny of the minority continues with the natives of Caledonia, while the police and the province are forced to account for why they colluded in the hostage-taking and intimidation of decent, taxpaying citizens, on their own property, by non-contributory tugs and criminals who get a pass.  Yet another glorious Canadian legacy.

~ South of the border, Psychology Today drops the turd that perhaps Nidal Hassan mowed down a crowd of his fellow soldiers out of a misguided need to belong.  While elsewhere on it's pages, this one slips past the PC editor... "while suicide missions are not always religiously motivated, when religion is involved, it is always Muslim. [..] As with everything else from this perspective, it may have a lot to do with sex, or, in this case, the absence of sex."  An interesting theory, and one that, if correct, holds some concerning implications for boy-heavy China, as well.

~ From tyranny to stupidity (though I believe that last one qualified under both), the overwhelming consensus seems to be that 2012is a healthy dose of it, with seconds!  Which is actually too bad because I have an insatiable fetish for over-the-top disaster films and was looking forward to enjoying this one while simultaneously mocking John Cusack in every scene.  Perhaps I could still do that but I think I'll wait to do it in the comfort of my own home, courtesy of Blockbuster.  And am I the only person who really liked Independence Day?

~ In the wake of this cinematic failure, io9 comes up with a pitchfor a sequel that is so vapidly puerile that I expect today's Hollywood to be rushing it to movie screens within nano-seconds...

This is what we're suggesting: While Danny Glover's President and Oliver Platt's chief of staff are hurredly making plans to survive the oncoming apocalypse that they've secretly discovered (as per 2012), a maverick government scientists played by Cage is studying the data captured the spaceship Alexei Leonov (in 2010) and comes up with a plan to contact the aliens behind the Monoliths to try and convince them to cool the Earth from the core temperature-induced collapse we've been promised. Part of this involves going public with that whole "end of the world" thing, which means that before too long, Cage and his family (including surly son Shia LeBeouf) are on the run, being chased by US government agents ordered to keep him quiet at all costs.

The only thing that leads me to doubt the likelihood of this being next year's big blockbuster, is the absence of stoic moral compassizer, Morgan Freeman.  Get him on board, and the story is complete!

I'm not a Wonder Woman...just a mule

I have been utterly swamped all week, at work and home...and today is crunch day.

For that reason, I'll be quiet again but I'll be catching up on the news tonight, and I plan to post a pinup this weekend.

See you then.

Gone, but not forgotten

A medal for the ultimate cowardice?

Have we all lost our minds?

Do we honestly want to treat a soldier who commits suicide while on active duty, as an honourable death on the same plane as those who truly give their life in service to their country?

Soldiers who commit suicide would receive the medal if the suicide is found to have been service-related, according military officials hosting a media briefing Monday.

I think it's disgraceful.  This is the most certain form of desertion and should be treated as the shameful act it is.

The enemy are big fans of suicide, too.  Why not give them all medals?

One down...

Only several million more like him to go...

John Allen Muhammad, the sniper who left 10 dead in a 2002 killing spree in the Washington, D.C., area, is slated to be put to death by lethal injection Tuesday in a Virginia prison unless the state's governor intervenes.

[..]

Some of the families of Muhammad's victims plan to be at the prison to watch the execution.

"He basically watched my dad breathe his last breath," Cheryl Wits said. "Why shouldn't I watch his last breath?"

Malvo confessed that he shot Wits's father, Jerry Taylor, on a Tucson, Ariz., golf course in March 2002 at Muhammad's direction.

The only true shame is that it will be painless.

How many times do the followers of this death cult have to slaughter innocents before we're going to admit there is a pattern here?

Willfully Blind

Whenever I hear about a shooting in the east end, I immediately expect the victim and/or perpetrators to be black.

Whenever I hear about a baby murdered or abandoned in central Canada, I immediately expect the delinquent parent to be Native.

That same instinct kicked in on the first report of a bloody massacre at a military base in Texas, and led me to the assumption that somehow, the Koran and one (or more) of it’s deranged followers had to be involved.

We’re all made to feel bad for thinking it, but the truth is stereotyping is just patterning based on informed observation.  My own bigoted assumptions, mentioned above, are accurate more than 90% of the time and I make them without the benefit of a psychology degree or any training in criminalistics – something which can’t be said of the scores of “learned experts” who spent the entire network prime time last night, prostrating themselves to avoid having to declare the blatantly obvious:  That 13 Americans died yesterday because the dozens of checks and balances in the U.S. Military were ignored or over-ruled by the politically correct notion that the radicals can only be found in caves in the desert.

***Or, in other words: 

What cowards we are. Political correctness killed those patriotic Americans at Ft. Hood as surely as the Islamist gunman did. And the media treat it like a case of non-denominational shoplifting.

Obama hates soldiers

The big, gaping O's "my pet goat moment" inspires my own Kanye West moment.

Can you imagine the outrage if George W. had been yucking it up at a partisan luncheon while the levies were bursting?

Fort Hood

I'm not sure the word "tragedy" adequately describes when a hand full of America's best and bravest are slaughtered on their own ground, by one of their own -- who apparently identified more with nations of nameless, faceless co-religionists he's never met, than the men and women he worked and trained with for 10 years.

The good news is...

She's free on "time served"...

A mother of six tried to smuggle 'a mini encyclopedia of weapons making' into Britain by concealing a small computer memory stick under her burka.

[..]

The stick contained contained more than 7,000 files that might have been useful to terrorists.

Hand-written documents also seized by anti-terrorist officers showed the former tax official was considering whether she and her children should become human bombs.

And by good, I really mean predictable.

There's just not enough lipstick for that pig

Kathy pointed to this little cinematic tidbit.  Me being a huge movie buff, and not immune to the aesthetic charms of a Barrie Osborne production, I thought it may still be worth wasting a bucket of popcorn on...if only just to laugh out loud at the truly ridiculous parts, or throw pork rinds at the screen.

But something about this part tweaked me just a little...

Osborne's production will reportedly feature English-speaking Muslim actors. It is backed by the Qatar-based production company Alnoor Holdings, who have installed the Muslim scholar Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi to oversee all aspects of the shoot.

Hmmm.  I wonder what that guy is all about..?

Qaradawi was born in Egypt in 1926 and, following the early death of his father, was raised by his uncle. He memorized the Qur'an in its entirety by age nine, and was particularly drawn to the brand of extremist, anti-Western Islam advanced by Hasan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. Qaradawi went on to attend the Al-Azhar Theological Seminary in Cairo before moving to Qatar.

[..]

In 2003 Qaradawi issued a fatwa against the Japanese video and trading-card game "Pokemon," which he believed advanced Jewish doctrines. According to Qaradawi, the gibberish uttered by the animated characters meant "Become a Jew."

In April 2004 Qaradawi issued a fatwa declaring a Muslim boycott of American- and Israeli-made products. "To buy their goods is to support tyranny, oppression and aggression," he wrote. "Buying goods from them will strengthen them; our duty is to make them as weak as we can."

That's what I thought.  Should be some movie.

All I can say is...I wouldn't eat anything made out of goat meat, on this set.

Solidarity In Starvation

Apparently, auto workers won't be completely satisfied until each and every last one of them is out of a job, collectively...

Ford Motor Co.'s rank-and-file union members rejected a concessions agreement, leaving the auto maker at risk to higher costs compared with competitors Chrysler Group LLC and General Motors Co.

[..]

Sealing the fate of the concessions was the "no vote" from UAW members at the auto maker's Dearborn Assembly Truck plant in Michigan and the Kentucky Truck plant. Dearborn workers voted 93% against the contract while 84% voted down the changes in Kentucky.

The Kentucky and Dearborn votes make it impossible for the remaining locals to pass the measure. The UAW needs a majority of the 41,000 voting members.

Workers disliked the company's demand for a wage freeze on entry level workers and the inability for the UAW to strike over the life of the contract. They question the need for more concessions as the auto maker's financial picture improves.