“Canada’s ‘Human Rights’ Commissions have managed to get anonymous website comments designated a crime and its investigators now go around leaving such comments themselves? Is that right? Traditionally, an ‘agent provocateur’ in the men’s room has to entrap the guy into the adjoining stall into propositioning sex. In other words, the target still has to commit the actual crime. But in the case of the HRCs the agent provocateur can, in effect, commit the crime himself and then charge the target with it.
“Nice work if you can get it. Agent Steacy and other current or former CHRC employees who do likewise would undoubtedly insist that they’re nice liberal progressives posing as anti-Semitic white supremacists. But who’s to say it’s not the other way round? Maybe someone should take them to the CHRC.”

or we’d have another tedious “ripped from the headlines” episode of Law & Order to look forward to.
PS: don’t you think a sane member of a sane group of people would consider legally changing his surname to something less suspicious or incendiary, just to make his life easier and other people more comfortable?
Oh, wait…

“…the study found that gay men in San Francisco were about 13 times more likely to be infected [by flesh eating disease] than other people in the city.”

Back in the early 1960s, two British teenagers pulled off something arguably more impressive on a similar subject, since they did it without green screens or computers…

“Well, in the case of Soharwardy, it appears that he himself is the subject of a human rights complaint — for discrimination against women. There’s a shocker. It was filed with the Edmonton and Ottawa offices of the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Some women in his mosque allege that…”
Keep reading. Ouch!

“I recently attended a conference in Budapest, where I made the mistake of saying that Europe was in danger of ‘going under’ to Islam. It was something like passing loud and smelly wind in public. Not too many people wanted to talk to me after that, and no one wanted to talk about my remark. What’s so appalling is that it’s precisely that failure to face the problem that makes it so likely.
“Here Melanie Phillips pulls no punches…”

A paraphrase:
“It’s ok for me to make fun of evangelical Christians, but the rest of you: leave Muslims alone!”

He faces major abdominal surgery next week.

Sure. Like I wasn’t gonna post this:

“By the way, Kathy Shaidle has a new e-book out. I’m so square I’m not sure I quite know what that is, but I’ve read it, and it reads like an old-fashioned non-e-book, only better. You should get it. (…)
“She has fans around the world: in the course of the last year, I’ve sat in a restaurant on the beach at Malibu and at the Savoy Grill in London and listened to various long-distance admirers regale me with favourite examples of her prose…”

(PS: you can download a free sample chapter if you want…)

Every now and then it’s good to remember all the things I am thankful for, including (but not limited to) a healthy, growing daughter, a great job, a connected family, good friends, crisp autumn mornings, my drooly dog & princess cat & squeaky guinea pig…
and pumpkin pie.
Happy Pumpkin Pie weekend, everybody!
PS: Apparently I’m technically-challenged and need to add some text to this so as to not screwup the layout.
So, let me add that I am also very thankful that no one in my family would ever ask that a family member’s ashes be delivered via the mail. That is just weird to me.
I am also thankful that Jack! is not running the country. No particular link, I’m just happy about that.

On the heels of yesterday’s post of my video interview with Preston Manning, today’s offering is a video interview with Ted Morton, perhaps the next Premier of Alberta.

I’m enjoying the Youtube age of the Internet. The flash video hosting service allows me to bring you my latest effort: an interview with Preston Manning.

Canada’s Newspaper of record birdcage-lining enthusiasts.
More background here

What has feminism done for me? Well, that’s a loaded question. I’ve been tagged on a Liberal meme that’s floating through the ‘sphere and am expected to post on what feminism has done for me, with the assumption that those “five things” will show just how important the Canadian whatchamathingy on the Status of Women truly is to Jane &/or Joe Q Public.
Hmmmmm, let’s see. I was born in ’60, making me borderline Yuppie/GenX. My mother was raised on a farm with traditional expectations, and (with help from Dad) conceived me shortly before (I think) “The Pill” helped kick off the sexual revolution.
Feminism (2nd wave) kicked in shortly thereafter.
I have to tell you, from my personal experience, that relationship-related confusion likely followed shortly thereafter. Just WhoTF is responsible for the dishes? laundry? etc? Why do women, holding down full-time jobs, continue (to this day by some dinosaurs) to be expected to manage the household as well (in a marriage and/or reasonable facsimile)? I know that if I were to get involved with someone roughly 10 years younger than me, his expecations would be different (more reasonable, in my NSHO), but there’s that whole cradle-robbing thing (yes, a double standard and yes, should Matthew McConaughey call me tomorrow I’ll be over it in a heartbeat).
So what has feminism, prior to 1967, done for me?
Here you go:
(1) A co-student in an acting class I took in (roughly) 1989 went through law school in the ’50s and was ONE of TWO female students. When she & I worked on our final project (sadly, not available on the ‘net but a truly uninspired performance by us both) and I discovered this, I thanked her for helping to pave the way for my generation.
(2) As a child conceived PRIOR TO “The Pill,” I exist.
(3) As a child conceived PRIOR TO the advent of legal abortion, I exist. (Trust me on this one, when I put the question to my mother, she smiled. Enough said.)
(4) I have worked at companies that have a “glass ceiling” but don’t currently. And the women who have broken that ceiling are well over 50, so the Status of Women did squat for them.
(5) I get to vote.
Did the Status of Women help me get where I am today (a well-paid job, without formal education)? Maybe, but probably not.
Did real-live women, fighting against all odds, help? You bet your a$$.
cross-posted at Waking Up on Planet X

The history of the NDP from Tommy Douglas to Jack Layton. Nothing’s changed.

The Broom would like to do some sweeping:
This post is aimed at all his human garbage supporters who worked extra hard to “make it happen”. Piss on you – as much as you will scream at the top of your lungs that this is about free speech, I have a thought for you that everyone else in the country is thinking – you are not Canadian and you will never be thought of as one.
Hawaii Report gives a LONG and detailed report on the state of NATO, its importance, its transformation, and its future:
What is NATO for? After 57 years of normally excellent service to its member states and 15 years from the end of the cold war which was its rationale, it seems appropriate to ask this question.
Money for Nothing @ Celestial Junk:
It must be nice, or so the saying goes. Imagine, being paid to write op-ed that wouldn’t pass the grade on most political blogs.
Add your links to the comments.

Some appetizers…
You Call that a tantrum… THIS is a tantrum.
‘Hooters for Neuters’
“Are we going backward here?” said City Controller Laura Chick. “We are a city with all kinds of progressive programs that empower women and end discrimination in the workplace, and now we’re being connected with a Hooters bikini contest. It isn’t right.”
A diary entry from soldier in Afghanistan:
I was still in a daze, and I remember thinking, “I can’t believe this just happened to me, are my guys alright.” I was standing in a huge hole now, but still couldn’t make anything out … I saw a hand come through the smoke and grabbed it.
Iraq: A War For Israel (C/O Ministry of Islamist Propoganda)
This is so widely understood in Washington that US Senator Ernest Hollings was moved in May 2004 to acknowledge that the US invaded Iraq “to secure Israel ,” and “everybody” knows it. He also identified three of the influential pro-Israel Jews in Washington who played an important role in prodding the US into war: Richard Perle, chair of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board; Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Defense Secretary; and Charles Krauthammer, columnist and author.
Hanson in Hoping We Fail
Yet if most Americans will retain their composure, reexamine the events of the last two years, remember the horror of September 11, and appraise the myriad of problems that faced us in Afghanistan and Iraq — as well as in Europe, the Arab world, at the U.N. — and the hysteria and false knowledge here at home, they will look at our present situation and past accomplishment, and rightly sigh: “I can’t believe that we really did it.”

Guess who?
“I’ve been reluctant to name traitors— but I’ve got one for you: Ron Klink, some former Democrat Congressman, is blaming the plot to blow up the Sears Tower on the fact that Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction. If this were World War II circumstances, and we had the virtues of that era, Ron Klink would be lined up and shot. That’s a traitor.”
“When did that (being mean) enter the public debate, that someone is ‘mean’?” … “We’re having an argument, I’m winning—and they sit back and cry and say, ‘Oh, you’re mean.’ When did that happen?”
“Because they send out victims as spokespeople!” … “Not any more, I might add! I think I ended that little trick. Oh, they’ll still do it, but everyone’s going to be sitting back in their living room rolling their eyes now.”
“Well, I was not surprised to find out that Sean Penn plays with dolls. I did think they’d be larger and inflatable.”
Read all 10 pages here: CLICK
ht: nealenews
crossposted @ Celestial Junk