The Lasso of Truth

Where has personal responsibility gone?

Apparently, getting sauced is a perfectly acceptable excuse to get away with any number of crimes these days...

A judge has reopened a major legal controversy by ruling that accused people can claim they were too drunk to be found culpable of committing crimes.

Presiding over a sexual assault case in Southwestern Ontario, Mr. Justice Terrence Patterson of the Superior Court of Ontario ruled that Parliament violated the Charter of Rights with a 1995 law that prohibits the so-called defence of excessive intoxication.

The ruling opened the door for Carl Frederick Fleming, 62, to argue that he was too drunk to appreciate his actions when he sexually assaulted a St. Thomas, Ont., woman in 2009.

Even worse though, will be the predictable caterwauling we will hear from the hypocrites on the slut-walk side of the spectrum, arguing that a drunk man who sexually assaults someone should be held responsible for his actions, but a drunk woman who dresses like a hooker and wanders into the woods with a perfect stranger should not be.

Two legs good, three legs bad?

Amen

To my favorite salacious stalker...

Wow. There isn't a lot that I have to say in response other than that if a Conservative prime minister needs to be forced to stop spending money that he doesn't have, then he isn't particularly conservative. And, amazingly enough, electing a lot of Conservatives was supposed to be the cure to stop the Liberals from pissing away a ton of money, even though they, y'know, balanced the books and everything. At what point is electing Conservatives going to stop costing so much fucking money?

And why do I feel like I have to keep bringing up the contradiciton of the so-called "Law & Order" party bear-hugging and giving slobbery kisses to Mr. The-Law-Don't-Apply-to-Indians, "Caledonia" Fantino?

Sheesh!  Yer makin' ma head hert!

***Via Kathy...Fantino's do-nothing policy still reigns in Caledonia.  Now he wants your vote, and so do the two-faced hacks that share the party banner with him.  SHAME.

Overheard on the radio this morning...

"The last time she wrote a hit piece like this, Rob Ford swept the mayoralty race in a near landslide.  Let her write!"

You'd think her editor would have caught on by now.  Then again, Warren Kinsella keeps getting work, too.

The feeble Liberal mind

It feels "uncomfortable" with employing a "judgmental" "tone" when discussing things like spousal abuse and honour killings, in official government literature introducing new Canadians to their new home.

Well shucks, we wouldn't want to alienate any of those wife beaters/murderers with "pejorative" words that might discourage them from bringing their barbaric cultural customs here.

Jeezus.

Oh, Canada!

A new survey finds that nearly half of Canadians have managed to retain some semblance of common sense, despite the valiant efforts of poverty interests and government "sensitivity" campaigns...

A new poll commissioned by the Salvation Army finds that many Canadians hold some less-than-charitable views when it comes to the poor, including that those of meagre means would "take advantage" of any help and would "do nothing" with it.

The poll, conducted by Angus Reid in late January, also found that about 25 per cent of Canadians think that poor people are lazy and have low moral values.

With very rare exceptions, all poor people are in those circumstances as a consequence of bad choices:  Choosing to use drugs, choosing to marry an asshole, choosing a cellphone as 46" flatscreen over baby pablum.  I HAVE BEEN THERE, and I can trace back through the misery of my previous experience to each and every bad choice I made, that only made my circumstances worse.  AND I can trace back to all the hard choices and sacrifices I made that dragged my stupid butt (and that of my blameless son) out of it.

Sadly, The Salvation Army, and the rest of the poverty pimps, are all too happy to perpetuate the myth that poverty is something that just happens to you while you're walking around, minding your own business...

Spokesperson Andrew Burditt told The Canadian Press that many of the 1,025 adults polled "didn't really understand the extent to which systemic barriers can get in the way of really providing a life for yourself and that does rob you of your dignity."

What dignity is there in taking money from your neighbours, to pay for your irresponsible choices?  I'd say 1,025 of adults polled understand the systemic root causes of poverty more than The Salvation Army does.

I try to be helpful

Kathy pointedly asks...

a house in Toronto costs half a million dollars. How they expect to get a viable, built-to-code women’s shelter, complete with security system, a couple of kitchens and numerous bathrooms out of a fraction of that $241,000 they extorted from us baffles me.

Might I suggest they can buy it from the Wigamen?

Old world meets new, in a manner.

Shaping young minds

Most mornings I pack 6 school lunches.  1 cream cheese bagel or croissant in a Ziploc bag, a handful of baby carrots in a Ziploc bag, slices apples dredged in lemon juice in a Ziploc bag, two-bite brownies in a Ziploc bag, and a fruit cup or pudding with a disposable plastic spoon.  I used to even send a juice box or disposable juice bottle, until I figured it would be less expensive to use jug juice and refillable bottles.  That was an economical decision.  The rest of the choices are motivated by expense and time constraints.

I expect my children have all been summarily labeled offenders in the first degree for some time now, by the eco-tyrants in their classrooms…

A couple in Laval, Que., has sparked a fierce debate over how far schools should go to teach children about environmental responsibility after their six-year-old son was shut out of a kindergarten draw to win a stuffed animal because he had an environmentally unfriendly sandwich bag in his lunch box.

Marc-Andre Lanciault said he hadn't heard of the school's draw or any environmental policy until his wife, Isabel Theoret, was making their son Felix a sandwich and he begged them not to put it in a plastic bag.

"He said, 'No mommy, you can't do that. Not a Ziploc,' " Mr. Lanciault said.

Through tears, the boy told his parents that the school had held a draw to win a stuffed teddy bear and only children who didn't have any plastic sandwich bags could enter.

I’ve already made the school resoundingly aware of how I feel about the nauseating bacterial science project that comes home under the “boomerang” lunch project (where children bring their lunch garbage back home).  Do you have any idea what a pudding cup looks like when it’s been baking in a thermal lunch bag all day?  Imagine the frantic reports that would be made to various agencies if it was me who forced my child to traipse back and forth to school with festering food garbage in their backpack!

On a day when we have all the children, I routinely run our dishwasher on an average of 3 times a day.  If I migrated to the so-called “sustainable” containers (ie. Tupperware) that the school encourages, it would add at least one more load each day.  Don’t tell me that is more “environmentally responsible” than a handful of Ziploc bags.  And even if it was, tough!  I already have enough work to do, making sure 6 kids get fed and dressed and off to school in time with a healthy lunch, and I already do enough dishes.

Death by Social Worker

What would motivate the poor and under-educated to work and strive to improve their fortunes, if they didn’t have the greener pastures on the other side of the street to look to..?

In a first for Ontario, a Niagara-area school opening this fall will only admit low-income students whose parents don’t have a college or university education.

While raising concerns about stigmatizing poor children, the board has approved the initiative saying the current system doesn’t serve them well and that similar U.S. schools have proved successful.

If you insulate them from seeing or experiencing uneven or disadvantaged circumstances, how would they even know there is more to be had out there?

Gender Politics

How long before it becomes a compulsory part of the public school curriculum..?

King City Public pull pulled the plug on the "Opposite Gender Day," when kids as young as six would be allowed to come to school dressed as the opposite sex, following an outcry from parents.

[..]

The chance to dress as the opposite sex was voluntary for students from junior kindergarten to Grade 8, Virgo said.

It was proposed by the school's student council to principal Karen Goan, he said. 
 

"They discussed the fun the day might generate, plus how the experience might help boys and girls understand a bit more what it felt like to be a member of the opposite sex ... that was the plan," he said.

Just lend little Madison your strap-on and slap some lipstick and stilettos on Liam and toddle them off to school then.

Maybe school has changed since I was there, but this sounds like a perfect recipe for getting a beating in the hall.  And that is as it should be.

Fiscal Genius

First, he roots around in the sofa cushions and finds $100 million he didn't know he had.

Now we find out His Royal Hairness forgot to carry the one and account for a little thing we like to call inflation...

David Peterson, who led Toronto’s successful bid to host the 2015 Pan Am Games, helped sway city council’s support with this classic quote, early in the process: “This is a chance for Toronto to have a great party with no hangover whatsoever.”

Now that the city’s bill has doubled, with four years of adjustments still to come, you can bet many councillors are today asking, what was he drinking?

[..]

At an executive committee meeting Monday, a number of councillors sounded stunned about various parts of a bill that suddenly has doubled. Mayor Rob Ford said he was “blindsided.”

They have a point. No one, anywhere, predicted the city’s costs would double, from $49.5 million to more than $97 million.

There was a small warning in 2009, but in the city’s 2010 budget, the potential for cost escalation had disappeared.

Then — boom — the Pan Am team demands another $47 million.

There are two key elements to the doubling of the price tag. The first is $22 million to clean up the old Morningside landfill site, so the Pan Am pool complex in Scarborough can be put on top of it. Surprise!

The second big bill is for inflation, a whopping $21.3 million, because the city budgeted for the games in 2008 dollars. Who budgets for 2015 using 2008 numbers?

I wonder where this stone cold fiscal prowess has led him to now?

outstanding.

1 little, 2 little, 3 little Indians...

Do they still count as a "disadvantaged people" when their chiefs get paid twice what it takes to make the Sunshine List?

Chief Shirley Clarke and the Glooscap First Nation came under the spotlight when the Canadian Taxpayers Federation unveiled federal documents last week that showed high salaries at many reserves across the country, including one East Coast band with 304 members that paid its chief $243,000 a year.

So, each resident on that reserve paid almost $800 last year, for Ms. Clarke's representation.  I'd like to know how many of them feel like they got their money's worth.

I'd rather vote for Jack Layton

If this story is even a little bit true, the Conservative Party of Canada deserves to be blasted to political oblivion for at least a generation...

Julian Fantino, for years Ontario’s best known and highest-ranking cop, will be the Conservative candidate in the Vaughan federal by-election when it’s called by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the Toronto Star has learned.

A senior government source said “he’s going for it, no doubt” — even as the Prime Minister’s office tried to douse expectations that the former Ontario Provincial Police commissioner was making the leap to federal politics.

“I was told it was a done deal,” another senior Conservative said.

Fantino would be expected to ultimately land in cabinet if the Conservatives are re-elected.

Getting the retired and often controversial hard-nosed, law and order former Toronto police chief is considered a coup for the federal Conservatives, who have been courting him for some time.

Ontario Progressive Conservatives were also trying to woo Fantino to run at the provincial level.

If Julian "Caledonia" Fantino is the Conservative's idea of "most eligible bachelor", they have no business wrapping themselves in the fake mantle of "law and order" they have been assuming of late.

The bigger question I have, is why Fantino wouldn't run to be MP of Haldimand County?  Hmmm?

Hypocrisy: It writes novels and signs petitions

Somewhat ironic I think, that her royal highness is concerned about the "dictatorial approach" being taken by an agency which was founded -- and championed by the likes of her -- on the principal of dictatorially regulating what Canadians can watch, read and hear.

Hey Madge, if it gets your dander up so bad, just exercise the choice I still (for now) have vis a vis your silly, pretentious life's work...tune it out!

Do you get the feeling they'd prefer to just do away with this whole election thing, altogether?

When will you knuckle-dragging, ignernt pleebs get it?  We know what's best for you...

Some left-leaning Toronto city councillors weren’t pulling their punches when asked how they feel about the thought of Councillor Rob Ford becoming Toronto’s next mayor.

“In my opinion, if Mayor Ford is elected, city council will have a caucus meeting and they will choose their own mayor and (Ford) will be the mayor in name,” retiring Councillor Kyle Rae said Wednesday during the last city council meeting before the Oct. 25 vote.

“I hope that the citizens of Toronto wake up ... I can’t believe Toronto is prepared to do it.”

[..]

“Most thinking people in Toronto would be so embarrassed by him being mayor that there would be an obligation on council to do something,” he said.

Councillor Howard Moscoe was a little more descriptive in how he sees a Mayor Ford interacting with council.

“He won’t be able to pass gas without the permission of council,” Moscoe said.

When asked if he thinks Ford will be able to work with council, he added: “Depends how often he wants to pass gas.”

Councillor Maria Augimeri said Rae may be right about council having to go rogue against a Mayor Ford.

“I have yet to know that he’s read a report, (the mayor) needs to be intellectually engaged,” she said. “You need to be able to be an avid reader and promoter of the city, simple pat actions won’t do, Band-Aid solutions won’t do ... there is no quick fix (for the city).”

The York Centre councillor said it’s “appalling” that Ford is ahead in the polls.

“But we’ve elected a clown before,” Augimeri said.

And, Rob Ford for Mayor? Are we nuts?  Well Heather, some of us are.

I almost wish I could vote in this thing.  You can almost bank on the guy's success by counting the rabble of yahoos lining up to bury him.

More on the G20 Street Party

Rex Murphy, on the new face of Toronto...

A band of black-masked, malicious, and potentially dangerous ne’er-do-wells did their radical best to get a racket going: torched a couple of police cars, did their petty “let’s smash the windows” trick, insulted the police, intimidated spectators, and tried to order the press around.

The world has seen this knob of losers and self-nominated “anarchists” before; they gave themselves the comic-book brand “Black Bloc” long ago, and they have been the noisome tail to the dog of every high order world meeting for well over a decade.

G20 Street Party Follow-Up

Not that I agree with the Liberal idiots about $1billion security for the G20 being a "boondoggle", but to put things in a paraphrased context...I paid $1billion for security and all I got were spectators in body armour.

If that isn't the mother of all boondoggles, I don't know what is.

I disagree

There's nothing queer about that about face.  I don't believe they ever had any real plans to exclude the haters from their world-class f*ck fest...just biding their time so there would be very little we could do about it.

Does anyone else think it's rather telling that one of the sponsors of Gay Pride is the Centre for Addiction and Mental health?

Good Grief!

My son came home from school the other day, complaining about a little boy in his class who ruined a game they were playing in the schoolyard.  This little twerp was yelling obscenities and nasty insults and refusing to follow the rules of the game.  Apparently, this boy had forgotten to "take his medication" which resulted in some unpredictable behavior...great.  Apparently, this happens a lot with this little boy.

So I asked my son, if he always treats everyone badly and doesn't play nicely, why do they let him play at all?  You can imagine my shock and outrage when he told me the school has implemented a new policy this year:  No exclusions.  Children in the schoolyard are not allowed to exclude other children from group games and play - no matter what the reason.

So a little Ritalin-addled psychopath who kicks, punches and swears like a sailor, can impose himself on a group of kids playing a game of pickup foot hockey, and they have to let him play - or face reprimand.

I told him he was entitled to exclude anyone who bullied him or treated him badly, and if the teachers and principal had a problem with that, they could call me and I would be happy to explain the reasons.

Sadly, it appears as though this fatuous little social edict is not an aberration born of this narrow-minded little burg, but rather an enlightened new social-engineering movement...

But the classic best-friend bond — the two special pals who share secrets and exploits, who gravitate to each other on the playground and who head out the door together every day after school — signals potential trouble for school officials intent on discouraging anything that hints of exclusivity, in part because of concerns about cliques and bullying.

If I have ever seen pure evil, it is this.

Thanks Kitty.  Thanks Flea.

Canada's Royal Class

Despite the fact that Canada is a parliamentary democracy which has (mostly) shed it's traditional monarchy, there are still an elite few in this country who have the benefit of privilege afforded by birth into a coddled class of royalty...

The federal government is set to give aboriginals a major concession on Ontario’s new harmonized sales tax, amid threats that protesters will “shut down the country” when it plays host to world leaders at the coming G8 and G20 summits.

Until this month, Ottawa had ignored natives’ pleas for a provincewide point-of-sale exemption from the HST after it takes effect on July 1. But with native leaders set to plan protests that could include outright blockades, federal and provincial officials engaged in a frantic round of negotiations.

Sources say that an 11th-hour deal to give aboriginals the exemption is now imminent, and that it was the spectre of major disruptions that forced Stephen Harper’s government to come to the table.

[..]

For 30 years, natives in Ontario have not had to pay provincial sales tax when making purchases anywhere in the province. By contrast, they receive exemptions from the federal goods and services tax for most goods bought off-reserve only after filing their income tax returns.

A silver tax-free spoon for every gas-huffing native sucking off the public welfare teet.  perhaps they wouldn't have time or energy to "shut down the country" over taxes if they were among the sorry pool of us who actually work and pay those taxes.

The other side of the coin

...the one that no one thinks about, when they talk about "universal health care"...

When Governments Choose To Pay For Medicine, They Also Choose What Medicine To Not Pay For

Inevitably, those budget troubles lead to government bodies making choices about what care to not pay for. And because public health care systems tend to have built-in advantages that allow them to dominate their markets, those otherwise reasonable-sounding budgeting decisions become decisions about what treatments are and aren't available to citizens—which frequently means that citizens get stuck with lower-quality treatments.

Or none at all.

Cat Fight!

Hey Arnie...

I bet you wish you took that free Karate training now!

;)

In the business of your business

How can you reason with a government that simply can't keep their hands off your can..?

If you're asking yourself "don't they have better things to spend their time and my money on?"  The answer is...they could tell you, but there would be a fee for that. 

I suspect there would be a lot of #2's in that...

Intemperate words are the new incest

Alberta man apologizes for stating observed facts that contradict the warm and fuzzy feelings of the do-gooders...

Chris Perry admits it: When he opposed a low-income housing project in his posh Alberta suburb, he could have chosen his words with a little more care.

The St. Albert man apologized for what he says was a poorly worded letter he wrote to the local paper opposing a proposed Habitat for Humanity project, linking it with elevated crime rates and "unruly".

Name one single low-income/subsidized housing complex on the continent that is not dominated by unruly families and crime.  I've lived in many of them and I know it's true.

Of course, admitting as much may force us to re-examine the precepts of our helping hand society and it's coddled welfare horde.

Universal Health Care, The Loch Ness Monster, Sasquatch

And other myths...

Politicians and top bureaucrats from provinces across the country have better access to cancer drugs and treatment than their constituents, according to Cancer Advocacy Coalition Canada.

It is unclear if that is the case in Ontario, because legislatures wouldn’t give out the information.

“We had exceptional assistance from across the country, with the exception of Ontario, who did not chose to report their MPP drug benefit program,” Chris Bonnett, an insurance and health care consultant for the coalition, said Wednesday during the release of the organization’s 2009-2010 Report Card on Cancer in Canada.

“There is a big gap between what legislatures enjoy and what citizens enjoy. They get access to drugs, cancer medication much quicker than their constituents. They also get access to drugs that are not part of the public drug program.

“This gap of what they enjoy as decision makers, policy makers ... the gap is dangerous. It gives them an unfair and unrealistic view. They think their coverage is similar to what every one else gets, but the reality is quite different.”

Sadly, now we can't even count on America to offer the choices we lack.

Priorities: Canadian Senate Edition

Militant feminists do a disservice to those of us who are sensible, responsible women, by linking their obvious and vocal idiocy with their gender.  For example, a handful of bored lesbians get up in a lather over a reference to "thy sons" in the national anthem, and give the rest of the country the impression of women as frail and insecure in this big bad man's world...

"Language is the power of the ruling class to define reality in its own terms to make invisible all others!" Ruth, 68, a short woman with grey hair and a contagious cackle shouts to the rafters in the empty Senate chamber. "I haven't got the exact quote, but it's like that."

The paraphrased message was delivered by feminist Catholic theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether and Ruth says she took it to heart when she first came across it three decades ago.

That philosophy inspired her quest to render the Canadian national anthem more gender-neutral – an issue that she says has been kicking around for decades – and she suggested the idea to Harper before the holidays. She says he had asked his caucus for low-cost proposals and other bright, shiny objects that could be put on the agenda for the coming months.

Well, maybe Nancy can't handle the pressure of acknowledging that there is still a segment of the community which doesn't have to strap on it's manhood for use, but in the country where I live, there is still plenty of room to let the boys be people too.

Whine

Not just served with dinner anymore...

Dozens of First Nations protestors gathered on Parliament Hill Wednesday to rally against the harmonized sales tax, saying it violates their treaty and constitutional rights.

The protestors marched from the Parliament buildings to the offices of the Finance Ministry a few blocks away.

"First Nations people and their communities are among the most marginalized and impoverished in Canada, and the HST will place an additional undue hardship on them", said Angus Toulouse, the Assembly of First Nations regional chief for Ontario.

Aboriginal residents of Ontario are concerned that when the HST does come into effect, it will be administered in the same way that the goods and services tax (GST) is now.

In Ontario, First Nations are currently exempt from the provincial sales tax (PST) and partially exempt from the GST.

Under current GST rules, goods and services purchased by status Indians on First Nations reserves are exempt, but items bought elsewhere must be delivered to a reserve to qualify for a GST exemption.

They don't pay income tax and are already exempt from most consumption taxes, as well as having most of their life subsidized by those of us who do pay taxes, yet still pitch and moan about marginalization and hardship..?  It's like the pack complaining to the mule that the ride is too slow.

Your tax dollars, hard at work

Toronto city counselor, Paula Fletcher, shrieks accusations and insults at members of the taxpaying public during what was supposed to be a public budget consultation.

The disgraceful behavior has to be heard to be believed.

Condescension, immaturity and hubris in spades.  How dare the lowly taxpayer question the wisdom of Queen Paula and her appointed slop-eaters!

Just business as usual on Toronto city counsel.

An echo of Reagan

In the halls where bright young minds are molded...

Rhode Island has one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation.

Central Falls is one of the poorest towns in the state. It looks like the pictures everyone's seen of Detroit or Flint. There are lots of boarded up windows, abandoned buildings, decrepit factories with broken windows, etc. It's an absolutely depressed community. According to Wikipedia, the median income in the town is $22k.

Teacher salaries at the high school average $72-78k. Apparently 50% of the students at the school are failing all of their classes, and the graduation rate is also under 50%. In an effort to turn the school around, the superintendent requested some changes be made whereby the school day would be slightly extended, teachers would perform some extra tutoring, etc.

The union balked and refused the terms, so now she is firing the entire teaching staff of the high school and replacing them. This is yet another example of unions digging their own graves by refusing to negotiate or accept reasonable terms. Sentiment is on the side of the superintendent, at least among the folks I have discussed the issue with.

I can think of a few more sectors where this kind of house cleaning should be done.

h/t

Work to rule, you say?

Wouldn't that be nice if they actually did?!  Since I'm pretty sure, the rules don't include being allowed to sleep on the job or abandon your post for an unscheduled coffee break.

I wouldn't begrudge a dude a coffee break, except I spent plenty of years using transit -- holding on for dear life while the bus driver played whack-a-mole with his break pedal, waiting for what seemed like forever, in sub-zero temperatures while the bus ambled along at whatever schedule struck the driver as right for his mood, and occasionally getting passed by when they didn't feel like stopping - not to mention getting stranded by wildcat strikes and the occasional summertime-long-weekend-Friday-sick-day.  Riders are fed up and they're not willing to give the benefit of the doubt to a horde of jerks who take a mile with every inch.

Please let the door hit you...

He spent a lot of time and made a hefty profit, spying on behalf of an oppressive government to help subvert a democratic movement.  Now, he shows up on our doorstep, to take advantage of the freedom he helped deny to others -- in the catch-all of Canadian asylum.