So...

4 Days of riots in Denmark, murder plots, embassies attacked, sanctions, flag burnings and not a freaking peep out of the Canadian MSM.

Maybe if they don't report it it doesn't happen.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7242258.stm

Zip - take a pill. The way I read it, the article refers back to violence that happened in 2005 when the cartoon were first published. If you read far enough down the articles there are words to the effect that "no strong reactions were reported with the reprinting ......

Steyn spanks Kinsella:

http://www.steynonline.com/content/blogsection/14/128/

Kate's piece in the National Post was a right cross smack on the Canadian button.

I suspect even regular Post readers eyes popped and head snapped back to such a volley of verbal truths from a Saskatchewan lass.

The Toronto Sun ivory tower brass would be wise to
get Kate's take on issues of the day.

Wendy Cukier, Dennis Miller, Stepane Dion, Warren Kinsella or Global Warming,could all use some of Kate's profound conservative re-assessment for a national audience, who may not be internet users.

Wendy Cukier is a GRIFTER, Joe. She's managed to scam a whoooole bunch of gubmint money by saying what the Liberals want to hear. A high school statistics class would laugh her off the stage, her work is that bad.

http://endlessspin.blogspot.com/

"But there's hope: my grimy, greenhouse gas-emitting soul can be cleansed if I purchase an indulgence of $84 U.S. While I fully expect my prime minister and other skeptical folks will call me up and tell me not to fall for a socialist scheme designed to send my money to the Third World, Catholic guilt dies hard. The check's in the mail."

Quote from Curtis Brown Winnipeg Free Press Newspapers columnist

Zip - take a pill.

My bad. Though the murder plot and the fact that one of the cartoonists is in hiding under police protection puts a calculated chill into freedom of expression none-the-less.

*
"Everybody ends up dead anyway. People die in cars too.
In life, you have to take risks, no matter what."

speaking as someone who has, on more than one occasion,
spun off a sliding motorcycle... "that's one way to thin
the herd".

*

Interesting political scenario.

The House is almost frozen by the Liberals and NDP having moved into pure partisanship, blocking every bill, fighting to appear in the public image, and totally ignoring their duties of governance in the House.

The Liberals do their usual, which is to try and prevent any and all govt legislation from passing; then, they can claim at election time that 'this govt has done nothing'. The NDP try to get a separate image of themselves, meanwhile, trying to work away at the seats held by the ever more left-leaning Liberals.

Harper is able to get bills through only by threats of an election.

The Senate, which has moved out of its normal role as a 'secondary reading' and into an activist role as changing, revising and indeed, writing legislation, has aligned itself with the Liberals in this role and is working to prevent Conservative bills.
The MSM - our CBC and Press Gallery of well-fed and funded - are working hard to maintain the Liberal largesse with constant attacks against Harper.

Now, will the Senate refuse Harper's crime bill, which they had in their hothands last November and have done nothing since? He says they have until March 1st. The Liberals won't want an election based on their rejection of crime bills.

Afghanistan? Harper has so entangled the Liberals with his own legislation, they can't divest themselves, in the public image, as having a separate and 'unique' perspective.

That leaves the budget as the reason for an election. But - do the Liberals want an election?

Bob Rae doesn't. That's because at the moment, he is in a by-election in Toronto Centre. He might be able to win in a by-election, but, in a federal election, he might not win the seat. He's arguing, therefore, against an election in March, because the federal election, if called the end of Feb/first week of March, would nullify his by-election campaign (it's for March 17).

Interesting..

"Where Have All the Soldiers Gone": War's vanishing world in Europe
[...]
" ... it's a surely astonishing fact that no European war has been fought for more than 60 years, at least outside the ruins of Yugoslavia. Western Europe has become politically and socially demilitarized to a degree once unimaginable; after so many centuries of bloody conflict, Europeans don't want to study war anymore. In his scintillating tour d'horizon - and de force - Sheehan suggests that such obsolescence of war is specifically "the product of Europe's distinctive history in the 20th century," and he argues that it has created a new kind of European state along with "a dramatically new international system within Europe.""
http://tinyurl.com/2har3x (IHT)

"Europe in the house of war
By Spengler

Violence is oozing through the cracks of European society like pus out of a broken scab. Just when liberal opinion congratulated itself that Europe had forsaken its violent past, the specter of civil violence has the continent terrified. That is the source of the uproar over a February 7 speech by Archbishop Rowan Williams, predicting the inevitable acceptance of Muslim sharia law in Great Britain.
Not since World War II has British opinion been provoked to the present level of outrage. Writing in the Times of London, the editor of the London Spectator, Matthew d'Ancona, quoted former British
Conservative parliamentarian Enoch Powell's warning that concessions to alien cultures would cause "rivers of blood" to flow in the streets of England. Times columnist Minette Marin accuses the archbishop of treason.
Coercion in the Muslim communities of Europe is so commonplace that duly-constituted governments there no longer wield a monopoly of violence."
http://tinyurl.com/34zrbs (atimes)

Cooling caused by warming.

http://tinyurl.com/yv5kyy

How can the GW people lose with this kind of logic.

(Via Melanie Phillips) Essential reading. A scathing indictment of Blairite Britain from the Royal United Services Institute. PDF warning:

Gwyn Prins and Robert Salisbury, Risk, Threat and Security: The Case of the United Kingdom

The security of the United Kingdom is at risk and under threat... Security is the primary function of the state, for without it there can be no state, and no rule of law... Anxiety about defence and security runs far and wide...

Islamist terrorism is where people tend to begin. The United Kingdom presents itself as a target, as a fragmenting, post-Christian society, increasingly divided about interpretations of its history, about its national aims, its values and in its political identity. That fragmentation is worsened by the firm self-image of those elements within it who refuse to integrate. This is a problem worsened by the lack of leadership from the majority which in mis-placed deference to ‘multiculturalism’ failed to lay down the line to immigrant communities, thus undercutting those within them trying to fight extremism. The country’s lack of selfconfidence is in stark contrast to the implacability of its Islamist terrorist enemy, within and without.

(Via ICT) Muslim group 'planned mass murder'

AN alleged home-grown terror group in Melbourne's suburbs who sought inspiration from al-Qa'ida planned to blow up football stadiums and train stations and talked of killing 1000 people, the Victorian Supreme Court was told yesterday.

The court also heard that the group's leader and self-proclaimed Islamic cleric Abdul Nacer Benbrika believed such a terrorist attack on Australian soil, in the pursuit of Islamic jihad, was justified because Australia was "a land at war"...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/15/wputin115.xml
Putin rages against the installation of the missile shield in Poland and Czech republic. Sounds like he wants to re-enact the Cold War, and see if the outcome will be different this time.

Zip - you were not wrong, Denmark has had nightly carbacues five nights in a row:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080215/wl_afp/denmarkriotsarrest_080215020605

Go to Ezra Levant's blog page for the latest in the Soharwardy hilarity.

http://ezralevant.com/

Soharwardy, who launched the Human Rights case against Levant, and has now, in the face of massive public derogation against him, withdrawn the suit - is rewriting the case.

He's changing his agenda from what he originally wrote (the he and Muslims were subjected to 'hatred') to one where he is a hapless, social-welfare agent, concerned that young Muslim immigrant boys fit in with Canadian society. He, Soharwardy, is a victim of Evil Ezra.

Soharwardy is ignoring that very few, if any, Muslims, or youth of any ethnicity read Levant's Western Standard; he is trying to deny his original complaint and his attempts to get the Calgary police to arrest Ezra.

He is portraying himself as a benign, open to free speech and others - ignoring his diatribes against Jews, ignoring that Muslim women in his mosque have filed a HR complaint against him for his behaviour towards them..

"All life is the struggle, the effort to be itself. The difficulties which I meet with in order to realize my existence are precisely what awaken and mobilize my activities, my capacities."
-Jose Ortega y Gasset

But of course, in the new 'Just Society' Canada, people have not been allowed to let life and its struggles make us into the people we should be.
Like the strong people that Kate dedicated her recent column to.

No sireee, this is Canada.
Life struggles are absolutely not allowed.

Now where is my entitlement.
Is it in the mail yet?

I wrote CBC radio in southern B.C. about bias in climate change. I was shocked this morning to hear not only about the worst winter in Afganistan in 30 years, but about how the Artic has refrozen, how the Inuit are safer driving on the ice and how the polar bears are safe.
As for how warming causes cooling? Lets talk about how multi year sea ice, by insulating sea water, contributes more to global warming than thinner single year ice that melts, exposing the sea water to cooling.

Oh what the hell.

I know that this is a pay week and some people are just looking for an excuse to live it up a little so here is your excuse.
It was signed as anon.

"Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chardonnay in one hand, chocolate in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming wooo, woooo, what a ride!"

Mischief makers, of course, already know this.

A few more snow pics from Hawaii
http://hahaha.hamakuasprings.com/2008/02/snow-on-mauna-k.html

Dinosaur warning:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/15/business/media/15times.html?ei=5065&en=6e060f6964c7525f&ex=1203742800&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print

See Toronto Star/15th

The trial continues today re a Sikh in Brampton ON who is charged under the traffic act for wearing a turban while riding a motorcycle (rather than the required helmet).

This is the clincher. A lawyer from the ON Human Rights Commission has appeared before the judge as a witness in support of this individual being allowed to wear his turban.

It has already been settled in BC and MB - their laws have changed to allow this. Do we have a hope in hell to prevent the erosion of our social fabric. Probably AB is next in line for a similar trial.

As an aside - do read the Calgary Herald/15th. One of the ladies who filed an HRC complaint against S. Soharwardy was assaulted in her home last night. One person in a full burka and another "older east Indian" male.

G. Keith Laurie

Maz2, discovers a Muslim bakery Alert!

How about dried flaked human feces in your bran muffins, carrot cake, oatmeal cookies?

http://www.islam-watch.org/AyeshaAhmed/Poisoning-Infidels-with-Feces.htm

This in the UK and Dallas too. Does this explain the amused smug *I know something you don*t * look?

I saw that look on a couple of guys who skipped town leaving the Mortgage holders for their hotel restaurant complex and all suppliers unpaid.

Be careful about your bakery buying choices. = TG

calgary clipper:

I thought that right wingers were all for individual responsibility and not having the nanny state telling people what they have to do, blah, blah, blah...

How is not wearing a helmet "eroding our social fabric"?

I guess this only applies to white people, eh?

Scratch a right winger, find a hypocrite.

lberia get over yourself. When someone brains themselves in accident because they don't wear a helmet, the public health care system gets to take care of them. I'm not arguing that hurts our social fabric, but it certainly has a cost.

How you attribute this law to white people and right wing hypocrisy is quite amazing, but fits in with your non-logical approach to anything you perceive as "right wing."

Yes, lberia, you get to define right wingers who apparently want no laws, are hypocrits and, of course, are racist white people.

Personally, I don't care if this guy wants to splatter his head on the road in an accident; nonetheless, we do have thing called rule of law though; it's not some buffet where you get to choose what do or don't want. If this person challenges the law, all the the way to SCoC, and get satisfaction, then fine. If not, then he should be prepared to face the consequences.

You seem to confuse keeping it simple with simplistic. Why must you view everything through some ideological prism?

Somehow I just can't see Kate riding her bike wearing a turban.

A little culture for your weekend:

(Via CSP) Jens F. Laurson and George A. Pieler, Despot serenade

After North Korea so publicly courted the [NY Philharmonic] orchestra to perform in Pyongyang, the orchestra's administration should have accepted on condition their repertoire be Ludwig van Beethoven's Third... Symphony, followed by Dmitri Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony. Then see if North Korea was still so keen on receiving the New York Philharmonic or if they feared the power of art.

What the works have in common is that they're monuments against dictatorship...

Caroline Glick, Mughniyeh's true legacy

It is quite possible that terror master Imad Mughniyeh was not killed Tuesday night in Damascus for his past crimes, but to prevent him from carrying out additional attacks in the future.

On January 30, French security services raided a Paris apartment and arrested six Arab men. Three of the men - two Lebanese and one Syrian - were travelling on diplomatic passports. According to the Italian Libero newspaper, the six were members of a Hizbullah cell. Documents seized included tourist maps of Paris, London, Madrid, Berlin and Rome marked up with red highlighter to indicate routes, addresses, parking lots and "truck stopping points." The maps pointed to several routes to Vatican back entrances...

Hey Shamrock:

I could care less if the guy wants to dash his brains in, other than it creates avoidable health care costs. But I've read enough complaints from right wingers about nanny governments that I have to point out the hypocrisy of calgary clipper (and thus by extension, other right wingers). "Freedom from government interference, except for the darkies", right?

Saudi woman hopes for royal pardon for 'witchcraft'

A Saudi woman condemned to death for “witchcraft” is still clinging to hope that King Abdullah will spare her life after Human Rights Watch appealed her sentence.

Fawzi Falih faces imminent beheading for sorcery unless the King issues a rare pardon...

The grey squirrel menace revisited:

Jane Owen, The squirrels are out. Get me my gun.

Spiced squirrel popcorn recipe

lberia, the difference being that he is calling for the law to be overturned on religious grounds, not "freedom from arbitrary laws". If he were, say, a non-turban-wearing muslim trying to eliminate the law, then I might be more inclined to support that.

As it is, EVERY OTHER RELIGION OTHER THAN CHRISTIANITY can flaunt or disobey or call for the abolition of laws to suit THEIR religion in this SECULAR society. Somehow, this does not compute.

Having said that, I don't think you're entirely wrong on your point, however.

Shamrock: public is paying for other people's accidents only as long as there is public healthcare. I thought that we on the right were against public healthcare, weren't we?
Eyeore: Christians, alas, compromise too much. This is why we got abortions, gun control and socialists in power. Way to effin' tolerant.

lberia. Like I already said, just because a "right winger" doesn't like government interference in their lives, doesn't mean they are against any and all laws. I don't think you really have a clue what this "right winger" thinks, for instance. I am a Classical Liberal, and vote Conservative because they are the closest party to that ideology, especially since Liberals, particularly under Paul Martin and Stephane Dion, have moved the "Liberal" party so far to the left, leaving the centre open to Harper and CPC. There is no ideologically pure party in Canada, not even the NDP (socialists believe in the dictatorship of the bourgeousie, not democracy, a view Jack Layton does not share with them).

Spare us terms like "darkies" too, no matter the context, will ya.

Liberals imitate Bush's republicans.
Liberals walk out of confidence vote on crime bill
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/02/12/crime-bill.html?ref=rss

Republicans walk out of Congress.
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/02/14/video-republicans-walk-out-of-congress/

What is Liberal Citoyen Dion's Taliban policy today?

Cut'n'Run; Run'n'Cut; Surrender; 'n'Cut; Run'n'Surrender; Sut'n'Cun; Cut'Cut ...?
...-

The Post editorial board: The Liberals' many Afghan policies
http://tinyurl.com/2sw5g8

Liberal-NDP Gong Show shut down.
Audience share 2%; half of CBC's 4%.

Buttcrack Karl opens Facebook; address www/asshyster/com; Szabo, Pablo, Thibault, Pat Martin signed up.
...-

[Liberal-NDP] MPs ready to toss Mulroney saga to public inquiry
http://tinyurl.com/ysvwwv (G-M; no comments allowed.)

Citoyen Who? Citoyen DB Dion has bailed?
...-

Stephane Dion has left the building

Senior Liberals are opening discussing a coup with reporters. Stephane Dion's response? Nothing. It's like he's not even there. [...]

""One senior member of parliament said to me, either we're going to get (Dion) to change his mind or maybe we're going to have to push him off the ledge," Fife said." ...-
http://stevejanke.com/archives/254916.php

re: socialism, my post should read "dictatorship of the proletariat." (not bourgeousie)

Yea its about marry old England again. Sigh

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7247470.stm

Zombie Time.
...-

Berkeley Marines Protest

These photos were taken in Berkeley on February 12, 2008 at Civic Center Park and in front of the City Hall building, at the protest and counter-protest over the decision by the Berkeley City Council to support Code Pink's attempt to expel the Marine Corps recruiting office from Berkeley. [...]

Here we see Jodie Evans (founder of Code Pink) holding up a peace sign on the left side of the photo, and Medea Benjamin (current de facto leader of Code Pink) holding up a peace sign on the right, along with various other Code Pink honchos. They decided to symbolically march around the park at one point, but no one fell in line behind them, and no one opposed them, so it ended up looking like a rather hollow gesture. ...-
http://tinyurl.com/39umrx

My observation on Dion's recent behaviour...
Just like he's done since coming to the leader position..... he's making bets he cannot cover.
The real leadership is going to let him hang himself.

No coup necessary.
There's people who know the party is overdue for a purge of the old Desmarais/Trudeaupians and a lot of useless barnacles that have stuck themselves to that ship.

Now that Stephen Harper has done the hard work of clearin up the middle ground of Canadian politics the Libs can try to reinvent themselves and fight for the old territory.

Dion is just a friggin tool.......

Hey maz,I saw these Pink idiots on Glenn Beck the other nite.I couldn't believe the mayor of the city allowed this to go on.He actually had 'reserved' parking for the loon fringe..it is THEIR right to squat,on city,reserved spot.Glenn also showed clip of city council mtg.with people screaming they wanted the 'killers' (Marines) out of there.Absolutely disgusting..and all I could think was 'get a job you dirty hippies,the '60's are done.

Oh yeah,if the speech Dion gave today was an indication of his campaign style,he is dead in the water!That was just putrid,and embarrassing.Can any of you imagine him prancing around on the world stage,representing Canada?Truly cringeworthy.

Three people were found dead in Ontario today.Two inside the house and one in a van parked in the driveway. The police are calling the deaths 'suspicious'. No shit Sherlock.The OPP again prove their worth.

The sun has gone quiet. Really quiet.

It is normal for our sun to have quiet periods between solar cycles, but we’ve seen months and months of next to nothing, and the start of Solar cycle 24 seems to have materialized (as first reported here) then abruptly disappeared. The reverse polarity sunspot that signaled the start of cycle 24 on January 4th, dissolved within two days after that.
Of course we’ve known that the sunspot cycle has gone low, which is also to be expected for this period of the cycle. Note that NOAA still has two undecided scenarios for cycle 24 Lower that normal, or higher than normal, as indicated on the graph below:

But the real news is just how quiet the suns magnetic field has been in the past couple of years. From the data provided by NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) you can see just how little magnetic field activity there has been. I’ve graphed it below: [...]
Given the current quietness of the sun and it’s magnetic field, combined with the late start to cycle 24 with even possibly a false start, it appears that the sun has slowed it’s internal dynamo to a similar level such as was seen during the Dalton Minimum. One of the things about the Dalton Minimum was that it started with a skipped solar cycle, which also coincided with a very long solar cycle 4 from 1784-1799. The longer our current cycle 23 lasts before we see a true ramp up of cycle 24, the greater chance it seems then that cycle 24 will be a low one.
No wonder there is so much talk recently about global cooling. I certainly hope that’s wrong, because a Dalton type solar minimum would be very bad for our world economy and agriculture. ...-
http://tinyurl.com/2o27j5 (wattsup)

How does this reflect on Canada ???

Property Rights coming to RUSSIA!

And we have???
Farkin Trudeau and his frakin legacy!!!

MAy he rot in HELL!

Praise da goreacle, and Hussein. Alalulya, allah-luya. Say amen, Lorne. Amen, Lorne.
...-

(Caps: sic)
UPDATE: MORE CLIPS OF OBAMA "FAINTERS" SURFACE
http://orbusmax.com/

CLIPS FROM BARACK OBAMA RALLIES... EACH IS A WOMAN... EACH WOMAN STANDS DEAD CENTER, RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE STAGE WHERE OBAMA IS STANDING AND SPEAKING... OBAMA SAYS "GIVE HER SPACE", REFERENCES EMT, AND HANDS THE WATER BOTTLE EACH TIME!...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1971161/posts

Short easy You Tube video, makes you an expert on honourable aims of Hamas. .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_YrStHhckQ&NR=1

= TG

Found a good training film for Taliban Jack to watch in preparation for setting off to negotiate.

"Make No False Accounts" - Premier Zhu of China.

Maybe we could use Zhu for Adscam, Gun Registry, Chalk River Nuclear, HRDC, CWB, CSIS, etc.

Penalty in China is a possible death penalty.

Gee, I wonder if that would straighten up the Liberal bureaucracy in Ottawa?

Who Is Killing All Of The Great Jihadis Of The Ummah?

First Umad Mughniyeh takes the 72-virgin ride with a Bashar Assad Special. Now Ayman Atallah Fayed gets blasted in the most literal sense of the word. Both men were high-ranking members of terrorist groups arrayed against Israel. Coincidence?

A powerful blast went off in the house of a senior Islamic Jihad activist Friday, killing him, his wife and daughter, along with three neighbors, medics and an Islamic Jihad spokesman said.
(via captain ed) http://tinyurl.com/yrz2ay

This is a scary scenario,but may happen. On the day of the upcoming budget vote,Dion stands up to vote against the bill,confident and smiling like a 'ero',his cabinet stands with him. But,the smile fades and is replaced with the 'sacre bleu'mouth agape look as he realizes that the rest of the caucus is once again warming their hands under their large posteriors. The budget passes.There is an emergency caucus meeting that night. The next day,Dion resigns, citing family reasons and announces that Ignatieff will replace him as leader of the liberal party. Dion is promised the position of ambassador to France and a shiny gavel when the liberals are back in power. He is happy,because that is all he really wanted.Bam,Bam,goes the gavel............... The cbc reports on this catharic development in the liberal party. It is the top story for days,and days. The cbc brass designate this as the top story of the millenium and devote their total budget to inform the public of these developments. Don Newman states that this is even bigger than the liberal leadership convention. Mike Duffy says that this a great day for Canadians who believe in democracy. Former PM Paul Martin cannot be found. Rumours are that he is in seclusion with Belinda Stronach. Many say "Belinda Who,I thought her and Paul retired?" The Harper gov't is defeated on the final vote of the budget.Upon hearing the news Craig Oliver has an accident in his pants,his first in years,Jane Taber giggles.We will go the polls.......... The election is set . Unfortunately,the liberals do not have many funds in their war chest,things look bleak.Joe Volpe is put in charge of fundraising. He immediately calls former interim lib leader Bill Graham to solicit ideas.New,fresh,youthful ideas. Graham pretends not to know joe.The cbc runs profiles of Ignatieff daily,never mentioning his 30 years spent living in the U.S. or his support of the the troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The liberals issue press releases daily extolling the virtues of their party,which the cbc mistake for news and feature them as lead items. The leaders debate is set. The cbc allows Elizabeth May to participate because even though her party has no elected members of parliament,they are running candidates in every riding which makes her opinions relevant. During the debate Harper's microphone inexplicably develops technical problems and he has to shout to be heard.Ignatiff,Layton,and May continually repeat that Harper is just a John McBush clone.David Suzuki makes a cameo appearance.........Cbc and Ctv declare there is no clearcut winner but Harper is a loser. Meanwhile,the Globe and Mail devotes several pages to photographs of swastikas that Warren Kinsella has photographed. On walls.In Canada........The election is held. The liberals win,with a minority.The Green party holds on to their seats. Jack Layton approaches Ignatieff and they agree to form a co-alition to better Canadians lives. The first order of business is the war in Afghanistan. Iggy and Jack reach a compromise, the troops will stay until 2011 but they must send their guns back immediately.It passes. Hillier resigns to a beach in the Dominican Republic with a case of rum.Newman opens his politics brawwwdcast saying " I told you so,Harper didn't like Hillier".The Globe and Mail publishes an apology for the swastika photos on the 6th page of the lifestyle section. Mr.Kinsella had taken the pictures in a war museum.His quest for legitimacy continues. Elizabeth May holds a press conference where she produces evidence of many irregularities involving liberal fund-raising. The cbc and ctv do not attend,saying that even though she ran candidates in every riding,they did not win any seats and therefore is irrelevant.........Quebec threatens to separate unless they receive a bigger share of the pie. They get it,taxes are raised. Alberta just separates. Parliament handles the separation by holding a contest to rename the country......Welcome to Canuba.

That*s some nightmare Wallyj. No more ice cream at night time before hitting the hay. = TG

From the front page of the Post.

The Anglican Church Loses its Largest Congregation"
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/story.html?id=308952

Losing St John's is a very big deal to the Anglican Church. A rupture in this very large worldwide church has been brewing since 1998. The rupture is accelerating.

Not only the largest congregation, but one that is young (dominated by 25-45 year-olds), educated (by my rough estimation, about half the congregation is university educated), wealthy and theologically sound (It is the favorite home to professors and students from Vancouver's Regent College).

It also has some famous members, including Phillip Owen (Vancouver's former mayor) and J I Packer (whom Christianity Today esteemed to be the 20th century's 2nd most influential theologian.)

Monday is the first Family Day holiday for Ontarians.

Speaking with my brother in Quebec on the phone today about stat holidays, he mentioned how nice it is to travel there when only government people have a day off. It seems there's a 50% reduction in traffic and public transit on those days.

...he mentioned how nice it is to travel there when only government people have a day off...

Yeah funny how that works. And this year it just so happens that some teachers will have an extra long weekend since they also had Friday 15th off for a PD day. The same teachers, like his wife, who supported McGuinty in his re-election. Funny how that works.

Not everyone is so happy though.

http://news.google.ca/news?hl=en&q=family+day+&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wn

A day at the theatre of the absurd
Margaret Wente
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
What do human rights commissions do? The other day I decided to find out. I dropped in on a hearing at the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, where the really serious cases wind up.

This case involved a complaint by two women against Dr. Robert Stubbs, a plastic surgeon who has a private clinic in Toronto. Dr. Stubbs is best known for surgically enhancing the genitalia of people who are dissatisfied with their private parts. The women complained to the human rights commission after he turned them down for surgery.

On what grounds, you may ask? Okay, here's the wrinkle. Both women are transsexuals. They used to be men, but now they're women. They wanted Dr. Stubbs to do procedures (a labiaplasty and a breast augmentation) that are performed only on women. He told them he doesn't do surgery on transsexuals. And that, they claim, amounted to discrimination under the human rights code. He denied them service because they were transsexuals......

http://ago.mobile.globeandmail.com/generated/archive/RTGAM/html/20080215/wcowent16.html

Jonathan Swift lives.
"stop eating on odd-numbered days." Beats eugenics and Gulags.

...-

A modest sacrifice for the climate
David Warren, The Ottawa Citizen

Which 88 per cent of the economy would my reader most like to kiss goodbye? [...]
And let me add a brilliant suggestion, all of my own. I have often thought that the world's food consumption -- and all the extravagantly CO2-emitting factory and transport infrastructure that supports it -- could be reduced by more than half, if we would just stop eating on odd-numbered days. I say "more than half" because, as I recall in Lent, people's appetites decline with reduced food consumption, so they'll tend to eat less on the even-numbered days, too. The scheme would also eliminate over a billion people now living at subsistence levels.
http://tinyurl.com/2ddrhj

Ontario's super popular Premier,(well he got back to back majorities), is now going to replace the Lord's Prayer at Queen's Park with something more inclusive to reflect the multi-culti nature of the province. That would be Toronto and environs. Is there any other area that matters?

We know who he's appealing to. Mohamed Elmasry, National president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, Waterloo, Ontario is in favor. He thinks it should be replaced with an "inclusive and purposeful pledge to serve".

Nice try. They have already made their pledge to serve, we're talking here about a prayer that is part of the fabric and foundation upon which this country was built. Why should we be expected to cower from our roots to appease? What is offensive about The Lord's Prayer in Canada?

There are three letters in response to Kate's article in today's National Post print edition: 100% support!

Afrocentric school supporter apologizes
Remark About Jews

An Afrocentric school proponent has written a letter of apology after a Jewish trustee said she used anti-Semitic language.

....He alleged that an "individual" said to him: "It was the rich Jews that built the projects that black people live in."

He posted a copy of a letter, apparently written by Angela Wilson....
http://www.nationalpost.com/todays_paper/story.html?id=314176

Angela Wilson
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/298714

'Year of the Rat' festivities.

In Toronto.

Where's David Miller's broom?

'Year of the Rat' festivities.

Where's David Miller's broom?

http://www.blogto.com/eat_drink/2008/02/rats_feast_at_dumpling_house/

Windfall(s): a word with which to conjure. Liberal Citoyen/Citizen Dion has the linguistic edge: windfall in English; in French, windfall is opportunite.
Liberal-socialists are salivating; tax'n spend.
Will Canadians bend over and take the enema?
Watch for the socialist Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) to declare a famine emergency in a desperate attempt to rationalize its existence/ monopoly.
Jimmy Gardiner/Tommy Dooglas: not dead enough.
...-

'Year of the farmer' on the horizon: analyst

A massive shortage of wheat on the global market is setting the stage for what some market analysts say could be a "once-in-a-career" windfall.
http://tinyurl.com/2msgmy (cbc)
...-

Windfalls would aid infrastructure, Dion says
http://tinyurl.com/3d2e8j (g-m)

Is this what inspired the big *food costs going up* item in the Saturday National Post.. Financial Post section Page 1?

Are NP/ FP writers checking out this blog?

Well that*s OK. Refreshing in fact. = TG