Saturday, December 22, 2007

Ezra's Petard

Well it looks like the defunct Western Standard, which is now only a blog online, has been hoisted by its own petard.

Western Standard's apology averts Islamic protest
Canada.com -
CALGARY -- A protest planned for Friday afternoon in Calgary to condemn alleged violent and racist postings has been cancelled after an apology from the Western Standard magazine.
Islamic group drops complaints against local mag Canoe.ca
Magazine apologizes for 'hateful' blog comments CBC.ca


The problem is that former publisher and now guest commentator Ezra Levant's Anti-Muslim rants encourage intolerance and hate speech as being so called freedom of speech in opposition to political correctness.

He no longer is publisher of the Western Standard, he no longer has a column with the Calgary Sun. But he seems to have gotten a job as commentator on Mike Duffy. Guess CTV is trying to keep up with CBC.

Ezra is a provocateur and nothing else. He comments to inflame. And then his followers use his excess's to justify their ignorant racist outbursts. Ezra is the problem, as much as those who comment on his rants.


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Justifying the Inquistion

Came across this stunning bit of logic from those nice folks who believe that abortion is worse than well worse than burning folks at the stake. No really I kid you not. Imagine if they get the chance to return society to their medieval values.

If you think that the Inquisition was evil or misguided, just consider the state of those countries today where the Inquisitions were the most active – Spain, Portugal, and Italy. Nearly everyone in those countries is Catholic, and consequently, all three of those nations have the most restrictive abortion laws in the world.

Over the course of six hundred years, the Catholic Inquisitions sent between forty to sixty thousand individuals to the scaffold to be burned by the secular authorities. This is less than half the number of abortions done in the United States every month.

Let's not forget who these folks were that the Catholics burned at the stake.

In the beginning, the Inquisition dealt only with Christian heretics and did not interfere with the affairs of Jews. However, disputes about Maimonides’ books (which addressed the synthesis of Judaism and other cultures) provided a pretext for harassing Jews and, in 1242, the Inquisition condemned the Talmud and burned thousands of volumes. In 1288, the first mass burning of Jews on the stake took place in France.

It is not known when burning was first used in Britain, but there is a recorded burning for heresy in 1222, when a deacon of the church was burnt at Oxford for embracing the Jewish faith so he could marry a Jew.
Book burning and burning folks at the stake just a step to the right of banning books.

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en-commons/thumb/b/b6/250px-Inkvisisjonen.jpg


SEE:

Unsafe Abortions Continue

Abortion Is Not A Sin

Pro Life?

Antinominalist Anarchism

The War Against Women

Jacques DeMolay Thou Art Avenged

Secular Society Demands Pope Apologize

Pope Benedict Deus Cannus Est

Bring Back Slavery

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Friday, December 21, 2007

Catholic Values

Catholic board bans 'Golden Compass' indefinitely

I guess we are lucky not to live under a Catholic Theocracy like feudal Europe did. Or else poor Phillip Pullman and his books would not just have been just banned by a Catholic school board. His books would have been used for kindling as the Church committed him to an auto da fey which was their punishment for the crime of heresy.

http://www.mimenta.com/Images/Extra%20Graphics/VA07/Burning%20at%20the%20stake.jpg

Now aren't you glad you live in a secular pluralist society which allows you the Freedom to Read unless of course you go to a taxpayer funded Catholic School.
Ironically the Catholic Church and its school boards are proving Pullman correct when he asserts the Church and organized religion is a threat to humanist enlightenment values.

Since they accept public funding while rejecting secular and public values in favour of their private morality it is time to tax the churches. Make em pay for their crimes against secular society and its enlightened values that they oppose.



SEE

An Open Mind

Nitwits

More Silly Censorship


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Person of the Year

Time wimped out and made Putin their Person Of The Year. All the right wing media in the U.S. is whining that it should have been Petraeus. But good old Bill O'Riley on Fox last night let the cat out of the bag. The real reason for Time's choice was that they made a choice of the lesser of two evils the real POTY should have been; Al Gore. But that would have driven the American rightwhingnuts even battier.

And Time's Canadian 'Person of the Year' was not a person but a coin; the Loonie. And again that was the lesser of two evils because their real POTY should have been Dion. After all they gave it to Harper last year. And because it has been annus horribulus for the Liberal Leader in Waiting, he should have made Times cover. After all the Liberals adopted a bird as their symbol this year.



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Harpers Other War



This is Harpers other war, though it shares something in common with his War in Afghanistan. The war on drugs. Well actually the war on Pot. The new anti-drug law Bill C-26 was announced the same week Karlheinz Schrieber was making headlines, so quietly the Harpocrites slipped their crime bill into parliament complete with mandatory sentences for marijuana growing and possession. And the media as well as the Liberal Opposition ignored this new draconian legislation.

While New Democratic Party (NDP) drug policy critic MP Libby Davies (Vancouver East) has already denounced the measure, neither the Liberals nor the Bloc Québecois have issued statements on it. Nor had either party responded to Chronicle requests for comment by press time.

Burnaby MPs say they will vote against the bill.

Bill Siksay, NDP MP for Burnaby Douglas, says similar laws have already failed in the U.S.

"They fill up the prisons, they disrupt families, but they don't solve the problem," Siksay said in an interview Thursday.

"We've given fare to many people's criminal records for marijuana use, and we've clogged the courts for way too long."

Instead, the government should decriminalize marijuana, Siksay said.

"We need to upset the apple cart when it comes to drug policy, he added.

Peter Juilan, NDP MP for Burnaby New Westminster, agreed, saying the federal government should spend more money on front line policing.

"The bill is the wrong approach to take," he added.


It's Harpers other war. And it is a dangerous one. For it would return us to convicting recreational drug users for victimless crime. And in creating harsh minimum sentences it attempts to duplicate the creation of a prison industry in Canada like that in the U.S.


With an eye on past complaints from the U.S. that Canadian chemical drugs and the country’s booming illegal marijuana industry are threats to America, the bill imposes a two-year minimum for possession of more than one kilogram of a schedule I drug for the purpose of export trafficking. Possession of cannabis and marijuana for the purpose of exporting – with no aggravating factors or minimum amount – would carry an automatic one-year minimum.

But, despite the political drumbeats about drugs and the image of public hysteria, Ertel says the legislation goes too far, too severely.
A conviction for producing from one to 200 marijuana plants for the purpose of trafficking carries a minimum jail sentence of six months. The scale rises to a two-year automatic sentence for the production of more than 500 plants. The maximum penalty for production of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking jumps to 14 years from seven.

“This is obviously crazy stuff,” says Ertel. “They’ve got a minority government and they’re playing cheap politics and the idea of the cheap politics is ‘go ahead and vote against us on this crazy bill and then we’re going to say you guys love drugs.’”

He argues the automatic jail time — no allowance for mitigating considerations — will inevitably prompt the kind of appeal that led to a 1987 Supreme Court of Canada decision striking down a seven-year mandatory-minimum sentence under the Narcotic Control Act as cruel and unusual punishment.

In R. v. Smith, the case of a B.C. man who pleaded guilty to importing seven and a half ounces of cocaine from Bolivia, Justice Antonio Lamer wrote, “The serious hard drugs dealer who is convicted of importing a large quantity of heroin and the tourist convicted of bringing a ‘joint’ back into the country are treated on the same footing and must both be sentenced to at least seven years in the penitentiary.”

Justice Lamer, though, included this obiter: “A minimum mandatory term of imprisonment is obviously not in and of itself cruel and unusual punishment.”
Ertel says the new Conservative bill may not only violate s. 12 of the Charter in certain circumstances, but it also targets the wrong problem, with the wrong weapon.

“Nobody’s putting anybody who’s making liquor into jail, and almost all violent crime, it’s above 90 per cent, is alcohol related,” he says. “I’ve never seen a case where somebody beat up their wife after they smoke a joint; it doesn’t happen.”

A Statistics Canada Juristat report shows drug trafficking accounted for four per cent of all cases in Canadian adult criminal courts in 2004, compared to 11 per cent for impaired driving. Common assault accounted for another 11 per cent, theft cases were nine per cent and major assault accounted for six per cent. Homicide, including attempted murder, accounted for 0.2 per cent of the cases.

Ertel says the mandatory minimums will mean more and longer drug trials because it will be impossible to bargain pleas: “The courts grind to a halt when there’s no incentive for pleading guilty.”

NDP MP Joe Comartin, a former criminal lawyer in Windsor, offers another twist. He says prosecutors will stay drug charges in an attempt to ration court time.
“They just can’t prosecute, they’ve run out of resources,” says Comartin. “They’ve got 100 more files behind them.”

SEE:

Contact High

Canada Goes To Pot

Canada's Prison Industrial Complex

Narco Politics

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Bernier Blows It

The MSM is all gushy over the fact that both U.S. President Bush and Condoleezza Rice mentioned Canada when talking about Afghanistan. I guess this is the big difference between the Conservative Government and the previous Liberal one. When the Liberals were in power Bush forgot to mention Canada. Wow what a victory for the Stephen Harper Party they got the U.S. to 'mention' Canada.

Bernier, Rice to discuss Afghanistan, border issues
Canada.com, Canada - 15 hours ago
Canada's deployment in Afghanistan is expected to be high the agenda at a meeting in Washington on Thursday between Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier and US ...
'Finish The Job,' Rice Says National Post
Canada praised by Bush for role in Afghanistan; seeks more US ... The Canadian Press
Rice praises Canada's role in Afghanistan CTV.ca

What Foreign Affairs Minister Bernier did not get was freedom for Canadian Citizen and teen ager; Omar Khadr still languishing in Gitmo, while the Brits have gotten their citizens released into British custody.

Ex-Gitmo detainee released on bail

Three Gitmo detainees return to Britain


Nor did he mention Mehar Arar let alone get him off the the U.S. terrorist list.


So as a foreign affairs mission it was a bust. It was simply cheer leading for Harpers War.



SEE:

Khadr -Canada's Shame

Cry Justice

Contradictions of the Security State


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Fiat Lux


Let There Be Light

The winter solstice — what many refer to as the shortest day of the year — arrives on Friday at 11:08 p.m. Of course, the day still has the same amount of time but the amount of daylight is at its least. Sunrise on the solstice is at 8:10 a.m. and the sun sets at 4:36

It is the longest night of the year but it has been celebrated by humans since the beginning as the rebirth of the sun. It fills this season with that most ancient human aspiration; hope.

SEE

Happy Solstice

Tannenbaum

Keeping the 'X' in X-MAS

The Monument Builders

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Humpback Victory

Japan halts humpback whale hunt
CNN International -
TOKYO, Japan (CNN) -- Japan has "temporarily halted" its much-criticized plan for a humpback whale hunt in the seas near Antarctica, said the chief Japanese government spokesman on Friday.
Japan removes humpback whales from Antarctic hunt Reuters UK
Whaling: The Japanese positionBBC News



Now lets end Japanese whale hunting period.


Stop Japan's Whale Hunt



Japan's Scientific Whaling Hoax


Japan's Whaling Outrage


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Thursday, December 20, 2007

Lenin Was Right


"When we go to hang the last aristocrat it will be the capitalist that sells us the rope." Lenin.

As American Capitalism fails it will be Chinese State Capitalism that bails it out.

Kill the competition: China bails out Morgan Stanley,

The Times: Morgan Stanley reported the first quarterly loss in its 73-year history after taking writedowns of $9.4 billion (£4.7 billion) on mortgage-related investments. The bank was forced to agree a $5 billion cash injection from Beijing.


The reason is that they are sitting on trillions in Foreign Direct Investment funds that they have not expended yet. Allowing them to be able to come in and bail out their capitalist competitors.

Dr. Kathryn Dominguez of the Gerald Ford School of Public Policy presented her paper on this topic at the U of A School of Business annual Eldon Foote Lecture in October which I attended.

I recommend reading her paper as it will explain why China's investment in Morgan Stanley is not unexpected, and in fact is the beginning of their bail out of big banks and financial corporation which are suffering as the credit crunch expands from the subprime meltdown.

International Reserves and Underdeveloped Capital Markets

International reserve accumulation by developing countries is just one example of the puzzling behavior of international capital flows. Capital should flow to where its return is highest, which ought to be where capital is scare. Yet recent data suggest the opposite – net capital flows from developing countries to industrialized countries. This paper examines the role of financial market development in the accumulation of international reserves. In countries with underdeveloped capital markets the government’s accumulation of reserves may substitute for what would otherwise be private sector capital outflows. Effectively, these governments are acting as financial intermediaries, channeling domestic savings away from local uses and into international capital markets, thereby offsetting the effects of domestic financial constraints that lead to excessive private sector exposure to potential capital shortfalls.
SEE

China: The Truimph of State Capitalism

State Capitalism By Any Other Name

Petro Dollars Bail Out The CITI

Bank Smack Down

U.S. Economy Entering Twilight Zone

Sub Prime Exploitation

Wall Street Deja Vu

Housing Crash the New S&L Crisis

US Housing Market Crash

America's Debt Economy

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Abstinence Education Gets an F

On the popular kids' TV show Zoey 101, she plays a butter-wouldn't-melt-in-her mouth goodie-goodie. In real life, her character was a little different. Jamie Lynn Spears, the 16-year-old sister of troubled pop star Britney Spears, announced her pregnancy to the world Wednesday.

In an "exclusive interview" with OK magazine, the younger Spears said she was "shocked" to be in the family way after having sex with her boyfriend, Casey Aldridge, the 19-year-old son of a papermill worker in her home state of Louisiana, whom she reportedly met at church.


So let me get this straight Lil ol teen ager Jamie Lynn has sexual intercourse and is shocked she got pregnant. She is not on the pill, her boyfriend did not wrap his willy and she is shocked she got pregnant. Her mother obviously failed to discuss the 'facts of life' with her, but she was planning on writing a book on parenting for a Christian publisher.

This is an excellent example of the failure of the right wing politically correct morality of abstinence and of abstinence education. It is also an excellent example, as if we needed one, of why family planning education/sex education/relationship education is needed in our public education system. Leaving sex ed up to parents means more teen pregnancies.

Now here is another point, Jamie Lynn told her family she missed her period back in November, why didn't she take the morning after pill? And while the white social conservatives condemn black American teen mothers, they will be gushing all over lil Ms. Spears. She well be redeemed in their eyes because given the choice of not being a teen mother,she chose to keep the baby. The fetus fetishists will embrace her 'choice' and forgive her the sin of teen pregnancy.

Janie Lynn Spears is a bad example to teens every where for the stupidity of having unprotected sex and sex without birth control, and for believing being a mother at 16 is a 'choice' when it is in reality a consequence of stupidity.

Fortunately the Spears family is a living breathing example of stupidity when it comes to children and child rearing. An example in the negative. And example of what is wrong when it comes to the real life consequences of the PC morality of Christian Social Conservative Family Values.


Every child a wanted child does not mean it's ok to have an 'accidental' child. We can see from Britney's predicament what happens when this family has children by accident.

SEE

Unsafe Abortions Continue


God Is Pro Abortion

Abortion, Adoption, or Abandonment


Procreation To Save The White Race

Britney Needs A Liberal

Miss Nevada


Feminizing the Proletariat

Kids Are Commodities

Abolishing Adolescence

Pro Life?



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