Nice to know it ain’t just me

72 Replies to “Nice to know it ain’t just me”

1. Feminist’s like Wendy Cukier (big cheeseett of Coalition for gun control) use the unforgivable actions of a freek to remind all the rest of the neo-fems what a bunch of jerks men are.

2. Left liberal malfeasance at work: deceit, dissembling fiction by “social services agency” and Jacl “Head Exploded” Layton. >>>>
   Exhibit:
   Social services agency planted a phony story in the local paper
   Associated Press ^ | December 10, 2005 | PAM EASTON
   Posted on 12/10/2005 6:37:00 AM PST by Dubya
   HOUSTON — It was a heart-wrenching story: A 10-year-old boy named John, separated from his mother since the hurricane, was living with other foster children in an emergency shelter, and he had one Christmas wish — to go home.
   “But there’s no way I’ll get gifts for Christmas. I don’t even believe in Santa anymore,” he was quoted as saying.
   The Brazosport Facts ran the profile on its front page Nov. 29 as part of its Fill-a-Stocking series, which features a different foster child each day from Thanksgiving through Christmas and solicits donations for a local charity to help fulfill the child’s holiday wish.
   But the story was a work of fiction.
   State caseworkers apparently made it up to tug at readers’ heartstrings.
   Dan Lauck, a reporter with KHOU-TV in Houston, discovered the story was phony after calling state officials to request an interview with the child. He believed that if the boy’s story was told on television, the youngster might find his mother.
   Lauck said his requests were repeatedly denied because of what he was told were privacy concerns. Eventually he was told that the boy was living with relatives. Finally, an agency spokesman told him the profile had been made up.
   Caseworkers with state Child Protective Services in Brazoria County, outside Houston, were responsible for writing the profiles for the newspaper’s charity drive, which has been a holiday fixture in the 19,000-circulation paper since 1982 >>> more
   http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1537756/posts
   >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
   Exhibit :
   small dead animals: Layton To Pull Plug?
   “Until Montr�al, most of the discussion was introspective,” Layton recalled in …
   My head exploded that year. ‘What must it be like for women?’ I thought. …
   http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/002910.html – 33k –
   google remembers!!!

3. The really sad thing here is we are not honoring the women who died in Montreal that day. We are creating a legend out of the man who killed them. And isn’t that what he really wanted?

4. It’s because Canadians love to put the superiority of their sentiments on parade. It ‘s about sanctimonious posturing. That’s why we get so solemn on Remembrance Day but don’t properly fund the military. That’s why we waste $2 billion on a gun registry that does nothing. That’s why we sign Kyoto, disgrace ourselves as polluters and then lecture other countries about not signing. It’s all about having the “right attitudes” and making sure everyone knows it.

5. Feminists have been telling women for years that they don’t need men to protect them, and telling men that chivalry is insulting and patronizing, and they can take care of themselves in any situtation.
   So the young men who left the classroom simply acted on what they were told all those years when they left those women to their fate.
   The feminist polemics that led to the death of chivalry led to the deaths of those women at the hands of a man who blamed feminism for his problems.
   Ironic, eh?

6. Cruel but true, Chuck. To be expected from a nation that defines itself as “not American”. Is there a downside to the CPC trying to frame the debate as to what Canadians really are?

7. The Montreal Massacre became a benchmark because the women’s groups in Canada at that time were getting enourmous funding (from the government) and were able to us this issue for political lobbying. The whole mysogynist tone of Marc Lepine’s life and upbringing made this a the benchmark in Canada for all violence against women issues.
   Personally I like Mark Steyn’s take on it, “annual hate a man day”. – Over simplified – but read his article.
   As for a human wave storming an armed man … I don’t think so. Automatic and Semi-Automatic weapons are no match against a man. If he had a 2 shot hunting rifle that would have been different -or even a basic handgun – either way a break in shooting would have been required, not so with automatic weapons. So the only choice the men in the room had was to die, or save themselves. Also they were likely all only about 20, and in shock that this was happening. I am sure at least some of them are living with “survivors guilt” because they were unable to do anything.

8. “The really sad thing here is we are not honoring the women who died in Montreal that day. We are creating a legend out of the man who killed them. And isn’t that what he really wanted?”
   Yep, the only two words I remember about it are these— “Mark Lepine”
   Horny Toad

9. I think that it’s an ‘excuse’ for feminists to push for an anti-violence against women platform, something that they can use to promote awareness of violence against women. Thusly, i think it’s a legitimate cause.
   At the same time, these people are CONSTANTLY harping on the ‘VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN MESSAGE’ – Not as an ‘all men commit violence’ point of view, but as an ‘All men should constantly be second guessing themselves at all times about whether or not they are acting in the “correct” way’ point of view.
   What irks me about leftist-feminist ideology is that men always seem to get the blame. Men can’t talk about abortion, because WE aren’t women and can NEVERunderstand (never mind the fact that the child is, by rights, half ours). It’s OUR fault that the pregnancy occurred, and if we don’t like abortion than WE shouldn’t get women pregnant.
   On another issue, there is sucha drive to solely focus on women, whether it be women in poverty, single moms, etc. etc. “provide more housing for women” “provide more funding for women’s centres” etc.
   Not that I have a problem with that.
   But what about single dads, or old male seniors in poverty (i know of quite a few personally) or housing for poor men, etc?
   Even as I write this I know it sounds kind of bad. I guess what i’m saying is, we should be focusing on PEOPLE not gender. Give PEOPLE housing, stop violence against PEOPLE, help single PARENTS, etc.
   Okay, i got off topic and this sounds stupid. But I just pulled an all nighter and i can’t think straight or elucidate any kind of thoughts, so give me a break..
   (end of stupid ramble…sorry)

10. I’m sorry, Sheila, but NO.
    There has to be a point where a (hu)man says ENOUGH, I will not tolerate that! Even when you will not likely survive. Even when the odds are overwhelmingly against you.
    If not, we humans are no better than insects.
    Yes, the 5.56mm NATO round is deadly. Yes, the Mini 14 has a 30rnd mag. But we don’t know with certainty what would have happened if even 1 guy would have charged this psychopath, but we do know what happened because no one did.
    The concept of taking personal responsibility must encompass all aspects of ones’ existence, not just the easy ones.

11. What is most bizarre about media coverage of the “Montreal Massacre” is, as Mark Steyn has pointed out (sorry, I don’t do links – but I’m sure you can find it) is the background of the murderer.
    He was islamic and the son of an Algerian wife-beater.
    He was not some kind of representative of Canadian manhood.

12. Mark Steyn- National Post-December 12th 2002
    M. Lepine was born Gamil Gharbi, the son of an Algerian Muslim wife-beater, whose brutalized spouse told the court at their divorce hearing that her husband “had a total disdain for women and believed they were intended only to serve men.” At 18, young Gamil took his mother’s maiden name. The Gazette in Montreal mentioned this in its immediate reports of the massacre. The name “Gamil Gharbi” has not sullied its pages in the 12 years since.
    Ah, well, I would bring that up, wouldn’t I? Just for the record, I’m not saying that M. Lepine is representative of Algerian manhood or Muslim manhood. I’m saying he shouldn’t be representative of anything — least of all, the best efforts of women’s groups and the convenient gloss of that pure laine name notwithstanding, Canadian manhood.

13. The MSM do it every year because if they DON’T do it, they’d be painted as “uncaring”; Weeping Wendy Kookier and the “Coalition for Gun Control” use this anniversary to dance in the blood of Gharbi’s victims because it pays very well for them to do so. Since 1993, the LIEberal party has funded them to the tune of over HALF A MILLION DOLLARS, in order to lobby the government; they pay Wendy’s way to the UN so she can try to export her lunacy around the world. Sheila, as far as your argument goes, when someone does what Gharbi did, you have 2 options; you can either die cowering in the corner hoping that you’ll live a little longer, or you MIGHT die trying to prevent it from happening. I know what the people on flight 93 did; I know what the so-called “men” in Montreal did, and I know which side of that line I’d want to be on.

14. It was so much easier to paint this as a story of “male violence against women” than it was to accurately report it as “Islamic terrorism against Western feminism”. Mark Steyn busts the mythology wide open. Yet another example of how the self-hating liberal west delights in ripping its own heart out.

15. Just to put some facts into play in the discussion, from what I have read and been taught about that day, Lepine went into two different classrooms. The first held roughly 60 students, almost fifty of whom were men. In the second classroom, there were roughly 30 students (including the profs). In the first room, he ordered the men out. This is where I am most caught up by the hypothetical questions of what if they fought back. They knew what he wanted, he was letting the men walk out and be free. That would have been the only real chance for a fight, but no one took it and we will never know. In the second class, it was more of a complete ambush, and everyone was trapped, under desks apparently.
    Either way, if one person, man or woman, had stood up would things have been different? Possibly because it only takes one leader to make others follow.

16. Well, well it is so easy to dissect an event with the benefit of perfect hindsight isn’t it?
    To those who have blamed the men in the classroom for failing to act—get a grip! Even soldiers in combat are terrified—it is only the result of significant training that they are able to control their fear and override the survival instinct.
    I do not accept the ex post facto criticisms of the conduct by those who now are speaking like beng a hero was the only option and that they would have unhesitatingly lunged at a deranged gunman.
    While the loss of so many young lives was a tradegy, the alleged “honouring” of the slain young women as some feminist manifesto is pathetic. Invariably it has nothing to do with honouring the dead—it is only to promote another agenda.
    The irony here has already been alluded to. If this was an event of some feminist significance, and if we buy into the premise that the gunman should be been rushed and subdued, everyone in the classroom, male and female alike, should have participated.
    The only feminist agenda being served here is a misguided male bashing one. The incident was one perpetrated by a deranged individual who happened to be male. His was not an act committed on behalf of every member of the Canadian male population.
    Wade

17. I agree with Nat. And I agree with Mark Steyn.
    I wonder if those guys who silently walked out can sleep nights. In my opinion they knew what was gong to happen.

18. Wade. “The incident was one perpetrated by a deranged individual who happened to be male.”
    He was a deranged individual who also happened to be Muslim. Why are you ignoring that fact?

19. John, I know he was Muslim but I think that has as much relevance as the fact that he was male. His actions were those of an individual with deranged thinking—that transcends gender and religious persuasion.

20. This country desperately needs a hero(s).

21. Wade. “I know he was Muslim but I think that has as much relevance as the fact that he was male. His actions were those of an individual with deranged thinking—that transcends gender and religious persuasion.”
    I absolutely disagree. You are not suggesting that fathers from Canada generally believe in the same things that this guy’s father believed in when it came to women. The household he grew up in, and the religion which his father supported, had absolutely no respect for women. It is an insult to compare this deranged killer to any normal man. His actions absolutely do not transcend religious persuasion. Show me a mainstream religion that treats women like that.

22. John, I am not going to debate the tenets of Islam. Suffice it to say that I am NOT prepared to even suggest that every Muslim male is a homicidal misogynist.

23. Wade. I don’t mean to pick on you, but please don’t put words in my mouth. I did not say that every Muslim male is a homicidal misogynist as you put it. I have several close friends who are Muslim and they certainly are not homicidal misogynists.
    But this killer was. And the radical faction of Islam is, according to their own words. Why can’t people say it like it is? Oh sorry, I forgot. Political correctness and all.
    Read Mark Steyn’s article again.

24. And now they are doing it again
    The Liberal handgun ban is another desperate attempt to control political debate. The actual problem is black and ethnic drug gangs fighting over turf. Needless to say, no politician in ethnic rich, visible minority rich Toronto wants to say its a black gang problem.
    Not only is is politically incorrect, they are guaranteed a howling mob of political activists and political correct enforcers crying �RACIST�. How exactly, one deals with a problem if one can not say what the problem is unclear. Nor do they wish to admit that whatever the benefits of multiculturalism may be, there are some cultures we don’t want in Canada, even if it is politically incorrect to actually say so.
    As to the violence, criminals with illegal guns keep them hidden which makes them hard to police. Criminal gangs are also organizations which are much harder to police than individuals. Clearly, the Liberals don’t want to talk about any of these substantive issues or policy failures.
    So they’re hoping that if they say GUN loud enough and often enough all of the above issues will be ignored and people will go off on a crusade against inanimate objects.
    In a way, this is a repeat of the Montreal Massacre maneuver. A man of middle eastern extraction ( Marc Lepine was actually Gamil Gharbi) with a religion and culture that devalued women engaged in a political act to �discipline� their �immoral behavior.� A government committed to high immigration rates and multiculturalism simply didn’t want to talk about what cultures we wanted or did not want to welcome to Canada.
    Police behavior was equally appalling. If you recall, they stood outside for twenty minutes without even attempting to interfere. This was not a misunderstanding, they could hear the shots and students were coming out of the building telling them that women were being murdered. They stood aside and did nothing to stop it. The courts later found them innocent of any misconduct for they had �no obligation� to protect individuals and only �protected communities�. How exactly one protects a community without protecting the people in it is unclear but that was the law.
    Obviously, this raises some issues about self-defense, and the right of self-defense and the right to the means of self defense. The government did NOT want to discuss any of these embarrassing issues.
    Fortunately for them, they had people who were very upset and knew noting about guns and even less about criminology. They found that if they said the word GUN loud enough and often enough people would drop all the issues mentioned above and go off on a crusade against inanimate objects.
    The net result is we spent $2 billion doing elaborate paper work on law abiding duck hunters and target shooters who were never the problem in the first place (see the Auditor Generals’ report). Of course the money did not come from nowhere, it came out of the RCMP and police budgets seriously reducing their ability to fight actual crime by actual criminals (see the Auditor Generals’ report).
    The Liberals do NOT want to talk about any of this so they are again hoping that if they say the word GUN loud enough and often enough people will ignore all the issues mentioned above and go off on another crusade against inanimate objects.
    It remains to be seen if the maneuver will work again.

25. As a knee-jerk reaction to the Montreal shooting, the half-wits in Ottawa banned all ‘military-style’ semi-auto rifles. (They didn’t ban the Mini 14 that Towelhead Lepin used- they are still legally available through their Montreal importer !?!).

26. John, sorry I was not intending to imply that you held any particular view about Muslims.
    My concern about all of this is that I do not put much stock in behavioural determinism. We are not automatons. I rejected many aspects of my own religious upbringing for a variety of reasons. I examined it carefully and made my own choices based on what I thought was right. I have embraced the ethics but not necessarily all of the tenets of that faith. I suspect every other right thinking member of society does the same.
    That there are radical elements in some religions cannot be denied, but again I do not hold in high regard anyone who doesn’t think for himself or herself. I don’t buy the “abuse excuse” either.
    My original premise was nothing more than this—hold the individual responsible for his actions and forget the extraneous factors. Looking for possible reasons as to why he did this based on gender, religion, upbringing or anything else one cares to put in the mix is counterproductive and speculative. While they may at best provide a context they do not provide a justification nor a valid explanation.
    Even if those factors purport to be an explanation of sorts, the essential fact is that he killed many young women and should be judged on that fact alone. Trying to extrapolate and make broad conclusions about behaviour which we say will apply equally to all of those people who share one or more background characteristics with the perpetrator is a dubious undertaking.

27. If just one man or woman in that university had been carrying a handgun, many of those women might have been saved.
    But wait … why arm citizens when the police will be there in oh … a half hour or so to protect against this type of insanity.
    Hoever, the meek and deluded of our society would consider gun carry by ordinary citizens insane.
    Well, meek, leftist, fools, enjoying the rememberance and man-hating December annual.
    We have become a nation of girly-men and manly-girls. If I may .. bwa ha!
    If we ever get back to recognizing the harsh realities of the world we live in, we will all be a lot safer.

28. Wade. “I rejected many aspects of my own religious upbringing for a variety of reasons. I examined it carefully and made my own choices based on what I thought was right. I have embraced the ethics but not necessarily all of the tenets of that faith. I suspect every other right thinking member of society does the same.”
    Yup. Me too. The only thing I liked about going to church in Souris Manitoba in the mid to late 1940s was the rifle range in the basement. Right after Sunday School my dad and I would go down there and spend an hour shooting targets, provided I had saved up enough from my allowance to buy a box of shells. I guess this is really showing my age isn’t it?
    “Trying to extrapolate and make broad conclusions about behaviour which we say will apply equally to all of those people who share one or more background characteristics with the perpetrator is a dubious undertaking.”
    Well, there is where I think you’re making a mistake. So I guess we agree to disagree. My conclusion was not broad. It was very clearly defined.
    It is the followers of a wicked form of Islam that chops off people’s heads when they’re still alive, pushes people in wheelchairs overboard to drown, blows up children in busses on their way to school, and stones their women to death for the crime of being raped that I’m talking about. It is the same form of Islam that Gamil Gharb (aka Marc Lepine) was raised in. To not note this fact is being blind to one of the biggest problems Western Society faces today.
    Take, for instance, the recent street shootings in Toronto. Another blogger raised the ire of some when he called them “black”. But that was right, although I don’t think he meant to stress it. I’m sure it was unintentional. But it was true nevertheless. In Vancouver the street gangs can be Arab, Sikh, Asian, etc. Most of these gang members, according to the police, are illegal immigrants. My position is that they should be rounded up, charged, convicted and sent back to their country of origin after serving their time in prison. You can’t do that without identifying their nationality.
    I’ll end by saying that my doctor is also Muslim. I trust my life with this man. He’s from South Africa. He once told me that if he went to Saudi Arabia today he would be beheaded within a couple days. I guess because he’s “from the wrong part of Africa.”
    It pays to identify our enemies and the deeds they commit. Or one day we, too, may find ourselves or loved ones in their cross hairs.

29. Women in this country, for all their claims to models of moderate feminism, are so controlled by men it is beyond understanding. Can they not see that the left uses this to remind them that they are ALL victims, and isn’t our patriarchal government set up to provide cradle to grave care? It’s an embarrassment, and when I hear them whinging about Harper, I could scream. He has strong, articulate women in his caucus, while the Libs and NDP seem to like their women to fall in line with whatever their (male) leaders tell them. Frankly, I have more respect for a prostitute or stripper who’ll go outand work her ass off rather than sit passively and wait for the government to look after her.And you won’t find one among them who claims to be a victim, but they will be labelled victims by the left who have no qualms about using their lifestyle to further their agenda.

30. Iron Lady,
    I definitely agree with everything you said. I would also add that the type of strong articulate woman that we can find in Harper’s caucus are usually targeted by the left as being less than feminine. The claims made that these women have changed themselves to play in a man’s world, in ways that make them less than the feminine ideal, drive me nuts. Take the original Iron Lady for instance. Much was made of the fact that Thatcher took voice lessons to command her speech in the House. Why is that a bad thing? She made a decision to make herself stronger. That is not changing herself, but realizing her potential. It doesn’t make her less worthy of representing women. But the left and feminists despise such actions. I, on the other hand, applaud them.

31. Mark Steyn from 4 or 5 years ago – should be compulsory reading for all Canadians:
    I loathe the annual commemorations of the Montreal Massacre. I especially dislike the way it’s become a state occasion, with lowered flags, like Remembrance Day. But, in this case, whatever honour we do the dead, we spend as much time dishonouring the living — or at least the roughly 50% of Canadians who happen to be male: For women’s groups, the Montreal Massacre is an atrocity that taints all men, and for which all men must acknowledge their guilt. Marc Lepine symbolizes the murderous misogyny that lurks within us all.
    M. Lepine was born Gamil Gharbi, the son of an Algerian Muslim wife-beater, whose brutalized spouse told the court at their divorce hearing that her husband “had a total disdain for women and believed they were intended only to serve men.” At 18, young Gamil took his mother’s maiden name. The Gazette in Montreal mentioned this in its immediate reports of the massacre. The name “Gamil Gharbi” has not sullied its pages in the 12 years since.
    Ah, well, I would bring that up, wouldn’t I? Just for the record, I’m not saying that M. Lepine is representative of Algerian manhood or Muslim manhood. I’m saying he shouldn’t be representative of anything — least of all, the best efforts of women’s groups and the convenient gloss of that pure laine name notwithstanding, Canadian manhood.
    This spring, there was an attempted gun massacre at the Appalachian School of Law in West Virginia. But, alas for the Appalachians’ M. Lepine, there were two gun-totin’ students present who were able to pin down the would-be mass murderer until the cops arrived. Allan Rock stepping forward to recite the relevant portions of the gun registry requirements would have been far less effective. Generally speaking, when the psycho shows up and opens fire, your best hope is that there’s someone else around with a gun to hand — a situation Canadian law has now rendered all but impossible.
    Extreme cases make bad law, and just because it’s a cliche doesn’t mean the Liberal Party of Canada can’t take it to hitherto undreamt of heights. Our disarmed Dominion will be the first jurisdiction on the planet with a one-billion dollar gun-registry. It was supposed to cost two million, but, as Dr. Evil learned in Austin Powers, these days that’s just chump change, they’ll laugh at you. No self-respecting government plan should cost less than ONE BILLION DOLLARS!!!!! Roy Romanow’s health plan needs $15-billion and all we can say for certain is that it’s bound not to be enough. Kyoto? Overspend-wise, think of the gun registry as a National Film Board documentary short and Kyoto as Waterworld.
    A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you’re talkin’ real money. More to the point, as there’s only 30 million of us, you’re talkin’ our money. So far the gun registry has managed to register three million guns for $700-million. That’s $233.33 per gun. Given that many of those guns are old and rusty, it’s not an unreasonable presumption that the gun registry’s already cost more than the guns. Which is pretty expensive for what was supposed to be a cheap way for the Liberal government to demonstrate its ideological bona fides to those who deplore the coast-to-coast “culture of male violence” as revealed by one crazy Algerian-Canadian son of a Muslim spousal-abuser.
    According to police, the gun registry is officially 25% inaccurate. I’d figure that makes it unofficially 40% inaccurate. But last week, while cynical Liberal bigwigs were openly boasting that this record-breaking government fraud would just be another one of those things you hear about for a couple of days that then mysteriously vaporizes somewhere over Shawinigan, the radio call-in shows were full of concerned, earnest, reasonable, moderate Canadians saying that, even if it did cost a billion, it still “sends the right message” on gun control. Which is just as well, as it’ll still be sending the right message when it’s up to two billion.
    Jean Chretien will be gone soon, perhaps sooner than he thinks. He had his CanCon easy listening version of Ceausescu’s final balcony speech the other week, when he appeared at a Liberal fundraiser in Toronto and he did his usual hokey Burns-&-Allen shtick about what Aline supposedly advises him and the well-heeled Bay Street crowd didn’t laugh. Say goodnight, Gracie. He looked momentarily stunned, like old Nicolae. The Bay Streeters never liked him and now they don’t care that he knows it. Their man’s Paul Martin, though for no other discernible reason than that he’s more like them — more seemly, more bespoke, less of a bumpkin. In every other respect he’s as third rate as his predecessor-in-waiting. When it comes to the drift and decline of the last decade, Martin bears as much responsibility as Chretien. On the challenges of Kyoto, terrorism, foreign policy and health care, his leadership’s as bold as a vanilla blancmange.
    What the Liberals had going for them was the long-held notion that they’re the natural stewards of Canada, that they transcend ideology. If you want to get anything done in this country, you have to do it through the Liberals. I’ve heard that a thousand times. Even Barbara Amiel says it. The Aspers, I was told when this newspaper changed hands, agree. And so do millions of other Canadians, not least those of vote-rich Ontario.
    But it’s precisely on the competence issue, on their stewardship of the nation, that this government deserves to fail. You’d expect Trudeaupian Liberals to be lousy at defence of the realm and foreign policy. But these guys are lousy — and wasteful and incompetent — on their own issues, on gun control and health care.
    Michael Bliss, no right-winger, put it very well on Monday: “If you want to see a real change of government in Canada in your lifetime, you’re going to have to screw up your courage, swallow your reservations and vote for the Alliance in the next election. If you’re not ready to do that, then you might as well stop gobbling and grumbling as the Liberals carve up you, your family and your country.”
    Well, you can forget about Quebec and the Maritimes. So the only question is: Will enough folks in Ontario “screw up their courage”? Will Izzy and his pals in Winnipeg? Or will they take the easy route: put Chretien in his cement overcoat and lower him into the river as the all-purpose fall-guy and delude themselves that Paul Martin will make all the bad stuff go away? That seems more likely. The gun registry is symbolic not of Canada’s predisposition to mass murder, but Canada’s predisposition to mass suicide.

32. Thanks for your comments Jack Linard. Right on the money.

33. As I posted earlier last week, there has been no suggestion of a memorial or day of mourning for the 36 women (that they KNOW about) who were fed to the pigs after being killed on a pig farm in BC. Why? Tyey were street women, that’s why. I would argue they are just as worthy of being memorialized as those gunned down in Montreal.

34. Mad Mike – I would love to believe human nature is such that we would all step up to the plate and do something extraordinary in such circumstances, but most of us would not. For some of us it would be Fear, other self interest in staying alive. Attacking a man with a gun is not the same thing as saving a drowning man, which is something most of us would do.
    Second issue here, the arabic terror thing – a bit of revisionist history. This was and will aways remain and act of violence against women. It was calculated to be just that. His father hated women and raised his son to follow. As long as men do that regardless of culture women aren’t safe. The gun registry, and now a hand-gun ban will not stop any of this kind of violence from happening. We may as well start a bread knive registry now, why delay.

35. Sorry for jumping in late but I just got a chance to read this comment section and I find it rather pathetic that armchair quarterbacks are doing the would have , could have, should have thing. Truly pathetic. Of all you woulda, couldas out there, who has actually been looking down the business end of a gun/rifle wielded by a madman? There is a very good reason that the police and military practice this stuff all the time. You have to respond to this in a practiced fashion, not a spur of the moment. You have to save the TV show heroics to the actors. Remember that in Alberta three TRAINED RCMP officers didn’t fare that well against a single gunman.
    As to whether or not the survivors knew that Lepine was going to blow away the girls or just use them as hostages to get his point across, I don’t know. I’m sure there are many that have trouble to this day. Idea! Why doesn’t someone go and ask them?

36. since the homicide rate for men is 8 times that of women are we misdirecting our collective anger?

37. “So the young men who left the classroom simply acted on what they were told all those years when they left those women to their fate.”
    I’m not sure of the details inside the classroom, but isn’t it possible that they weren’t able to see the future and predict that there’d be many murders? It might have been heroic to charge the shooter once he ordered men out of the room, but who’s to say he wouldn’t have shot anyone and the police would have been able to talk the situation out without violence? Hindsight tells us otherwise, but you know what hindsight is.

38. Iron Lady. Again I agree with you. Maybe if the street women lived in downtown TO and the pigs in a suburb the Liberals might have noticed. Probably not though unless potential voters were upset. But today is seems that if it doesn’t affect me or mine directly it’s not that big a deal.
    sheila. “This was and will aways remain and act of violence against women. It was calculated to be just that. His father hated women and raised his son to follow. As long as men do that regardless of culture women aren’t safe.”
    That’s true of course. But tell me how many major cultures you know that preach this sort of attitude in their religion, and bring their children up hating women. I know of only one world-wide culture. In other cultures it’s not a “custom” to do this. That’s my point.
    Why do so many people adhere to this head in the sand political correctness? Is it perhaps because it’s the easy way out?

39. This isn’t about guns at all it’s about one woman hating arab muslim with a 10th century mentality. The lib/left bull bitches can grunt all they want but anyone that bothered to honestly look at the facts realize that this is the case. You have these beautiful young women with their whole lives ahead of them and you can’t even honor them with an honest portrayal of events. Hypocrites. Offspring of insects.

40. I have to agree with Wade here. By using “identity politics”, lumping Marc Lepine in with all men or all muslims or all gunowners, we miss the mark. Individuals must be responsible for their own actions – only Marc Lepine was responsible for what happened in Montreal. Not men, nor muslims, nor gun owners. Just Marc Lepine.
    May he be anally raped by demons as he burns in hell.

41. Honoring Akbar Ganji
    Amir Taheri reports from the annual awards program put on by the Foreign Press Association in London:
    [T]here was an even bigger reason why I was interested in the occasion. The FPA had decided to award its very first prize for a dialogue of cultures to Akbar Ganji, an Iranian investigative reporter who is on a hunger strike in Tehran’s Evin Prison.
    Together with several colleagues, I had been trying for months to persuade the Western media to take an interest in Ganji, a former Khomeinist revolutionary who is now campaigning for human rights and democracy. But we never got anywhere because of one small hitch: President Bush had spoken publicly in support of Ganji and called for his immediate release.
    And that, as far as a good part of the Western media is concerned, amounts to a kiss of death. How could newspapers that portray Bush as the world’s biggest “violator of human rights” endorse his call in favor of Ganji?
    To overcome that difficulty, some of Ganji’s friends had tried to persuade him to make a few anti-American, more specifically anti-Bush, pronouncements so that the Western media could adopt him as a “hero-martyr.” Two years ago, similar advice had been given to Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian lawyer who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. She was made to understand one stark fact of contemporary life: You will not be accepted as a champion of human rights unless you attack the United States.
    Ebadi had accepted the advice and used her address during the prize ceremony in Oslo to launch a bitter attack on the United States as the arch-violator of human rights. ***
    Would Ganji adopt a similar tactic in order to get media attention in the West? The answer came last January and it was a firm no.
    The result was that Ganji, probably the most outspoken and courageous prisoner of conscience in the Islamic Republic today, became a non-person for the Western media. Even efforts by the group Reporters Without Frontiers, and the International Press Institute, among other organizations of journalists, failed to change attitudes towards Ganji.
    How utterly sickening.
    So, it was heart-warming to see the FPA honor Ganji as a champion of freedom. An audio-message from Ganji’s wife, smuggled out of Iran, was broadcast, creating the evening’s highest moment.
    But the evening took a sharp turn for the worse when a “UNICEF ambassador” took the stage to award the prize to the absent Ganji. The “ambassador” was apparently unknown to Taheri, who describes her as “a petite middle-aged lady dressed all in black… [who] was introduced as one Bianca Jagger.” Ah, yes, the same Bianca Jagger who was observed in Nicaragua by P.J. O’Rourke, who chronicled her desolation at the electoral defeat of the Communists there, and consigned her to the “lonely hell of the formerly cute.” Taheri continues:
    She started by telling us about her recent trips to Tehran and Damascus, presumably the two capitals of human rights that she likes best, and how she had been told “by officials and others” that she and other Westerners had “no moral authority” to talk about human rights and freedom.
    She then proceeded by saying it is all very well to remember Ganji but that should not prevent us from remembering “those held in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, and all other secret prisons” that the United States is supposed to be running all over the world.
    Taheri points out some of the rather obvious difference between Ganji, who is imprisoned for the crime of being a journalist, and those who are imprisoned for being terrorists. But this distinction was apparently too subtle for the famously-dense Bianca J.:
    Having swallowed my anger, I gave the “UNICEF Ambassador” a piece of my mind. She seemed surprised. No one had ever told her such things, especially not in a polite society of dinner jackets and long robes. “Is Ganji the same as the alleged terrorists in Guantanamo Bay?” I asked.
    “Well, yes, I mean no, I mean yes,” she mumbled. “But they are all prisoners, aren’t they?”
    It was eventually explained to Mr. Taheri that Bianca “had once been married to a British pop singer.” He concludes:
    Well, it had been a good evening. In the end, however, as the lady’s husband had once crooned: I could get no satisfaction.
    Posted by John at 02:19 PM | Permalink
    Powerline.com

42. This thread of comments stinks to high heaven, there’s so much bullshit here.
    From the Canadian Department of Justice:
    “Women were the victims in more than three-quarters of the 2,600 spousal homicides recorded in Canada between 1974 and 2000.”
    Violence against women is an enormous problem in this country. From Stats Can:
    “Female victims of spousal violence were more than twice as likely to be injured as male victims.
    Women were also three times more likely to fear for their life, and twice as likely to be the targets of more than 10 violent episodes.”
    And to this entire “It was because he was Algerian/Muslim” argument, which I’m not afraid to label as blatant racism, I have this to ask?
    What about Paul Bernardo?
    What about Wayne Boden?
    What about Robert Pickton?
    See any Algerians in that list? How about Muslims?
    Disgusting.

43. What I see on that list are 3 highly deranged sexual predators.
    Quite different than what happened in Montreal.
    Also none of their victims were their spouses, so your point is hard to fathom.

44. Ade,
    There is no question that the statistics you’ve listed are disturbing. There is no question the spousal abuse continues to be a serious issue.
    But there is a fundamental difference between spousal abuse (a serious crime, of course) and what happened in Montreal that day. The Montreal shootings bear more resemblance to the shootings at say, Columbine or the University of Texas then to the typical instance of spousal abuse. Mr. Lepine acted once, against strangers, then took his own life. He was clearly disturbed on some level.
    He may have shared certian attitudes with the typical abusive partner, but his actions are not analogous or related to spousal abuse pre se.
    Some of the comments on his religion/culture border on racism. But it is not, in itself, racist to say that Lepine’s cultural upbringing in a form of Islam that condones humiliating treatment of women had an affect on his actions. (please note that I am referring to a sect of Islam, rather than the whole religion). It is fair to say that his culture is as relevant to his actions as his gender.
    The overall point is: that a tragic event is being exploited for a political agenda that implicates all men in the crimes of one person.
    This is wrong.

45. Re-read the Steyn article (Dec 12/02, Nat’l Post).
    Paraphrased, Steyn observes that it’s as ludicrous to characterize Lepine/Gharbi’s actions as that of a “typical” Muslim male as it is to characterise them as actions of a “typical” Canadian man.
    Full stop.
    Every Canuck male should be insulted by the efforts of idiot radical feminists who infer that a bit of Lepine/Gharbi skulks inside every man. Utter, unadulterated b#llsh*t. I never a feel a whit of guilt, responsibility or culpability every December, when the liberals trot out the Montreal “Remembrance Day”. Do I feel for the victims and their families? Of course; you’d need a heart of stone not to. Is there a problem with male violence against women? Yes, and any man who beats his wife, commits rape or other such crimes needs to share some serious TLC time with Bubba & pals in the Big House.
    But to hint that I bear some form of perverted responsibility for this atrocity because I’m a male? Take a hike, Womyn.
    And you come off just as whacky if you begin to hint that these are the actions of a typical muslim male. Worse, you sound like a redneck right-wing crazoid version of the feminazis, AND lose immediate credibility in the process (either in defense of Canadian males, reduced gun control, etc.).
    Steyn notes the Appalachian School of Law shooting incident; try to discuss the merits of relaxed gun control in this case right after you infer the above about muslim males. You’ll be immediately branded an insane, right-wing fascist idiot, and ignored thereafter.
    And if you simultaneously hype the CPC, you’ll likely send a couple more converts over to the Dithers Libranos.
    DISCLAIMER:
    (in case any of you decided to classify me as a left-winger or liberal; them’s FIGHTIN’ WORDS)
    1. I am onside 100% with Steyn on this article (heh, I always am)
    2. I despise what the liberals have done with the gun registry, and can’t begin to relate my level of loathing of Dithers’ proposed handgun ban and the pitiful liberal commitment to fighting crime
    3. I have no use for the archaic mysogynystic beliefs of the more radical muslim crowd (or pretty much any of their beliefs, for that matter). Heh – I have little use for the beliefs of radical feminists, either. Hey, I work in a populated muslim area of Toronto, and it’s pathetic to see women in Canada walking down the street with faces completely covered, as though they’re strolling through Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. If that’s their choice, well then… so be it; it IS a free country. But I wonder how many of these poor souls might like to enjoy the sensation of sunlight upon their faces, save for the fact that their mates are forcing this third-world, supremely-prejudicial dress code upon them.
    sjd(at)cogeco(d0t)ca

46. Hitler said thar there was no necessity for Germans to have guns, he would look after them, his critiques were saying, “that is alright to say but who is going to protect us from HIM”?, and when the talk of confiscating guns starts, TYRANNY IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER!
    Heads up folks this is pretty serious stuff!
    Stephen. Parksville BC ww 2 vet.

47. While I am on guns, I can’t provide a link, but I remember reading where the Librano$ have a plan to stop issueing gun permits for ALL guns in the not too distant future, so one will be able to legally purchase a fire arm, That being so, and I stand to be corrected, it also tells me that the Librano$ are so arrogant in their minds that they are entiteled to Govern Canada forever, that they can prepare for laws long down the road. Librano$ forever! Their manifesto is miles ahead of the population, the way I read it!
    Stephen Parkville BC

48. correction,
    That should read NO ONE CAN BUY A PERMIT, SORRY

49. I see the MSM are still spinning the story of the murders of the four RCMP offcers in Mayorthorpe as a “drug bust”, when the earliest reports told us that it was four mounties, that a Sheriff was given to escort the Sheriff to the maniacs house for protection, so the Sheriff could seize the maniacs truck, the Sherrif was the only one that walked out alive. And early reports said that there were twenty pails of Marijuana that he was growing for his own use.The question that is not answered us why this known felon, that was known to have guns on his property ALLLOWED TO KEEP THEM, THEY SHOULD HAVE BEEN CONFISCATED YEARS BEFORE, THIS GUY HAD THE WHOLE NEIGHBORHOOD SCARED SHITELESS OF HIM, MAINLY BECAUSE HE HAD USED THE GUNS TO SHOOT A GUY ON HIS PROPERTY BEFORE WITHOUT PROVOCATION Thats what were in the first reports until the MSM got to start what I see as a juggling act.
    We have to start not only asking questions but getting some real answers, this country is practically lawless!
    Stephen Parksville BC ww 2 vet.

50. If only someone had lunged at Lepine…
    And this from a nation that won’t vote for Harper ’cause he’s too scary?