Complete with “Boy Love Code Of Ethics”. Because sex with boys is “Not an entitlement”!
Via Stop The ACLU, where a Blogspot flagging campaign is getting off the ground.
Blog Notes
To help illustrate why blogs can have influence that far exceeds their actual readership, click this Google search result.
Case rested.
Got Anything In A Cessna?
(Click photo for story)
h/t Shaidle
Yes, It Is Strange
Reader “Boudica” asks;
“Is it just me or do you find it strange that the name of the person who self immolated recently at the Toronto Tim Hortons was never released?”
Perhaps our legions of curious readers can ferret that out….
update Several commentors have pointed out that his identity has been withheld “due to the family’s wishes”.
Well, big whoop. When one chooses to exit in a manner that places the public at significant risk, which destroys the property of others and closes down part of a metropolitan area, one should expect to forfeit the “right to privacy”.
Afterthought – has anyone else forgotten the March 8 announcement of the Tim Horton’s opening at the Canadian base at Kandahar? And it’s unreasonable for people to ask who was responsible for a gasoline fueled explosion in one of their restaurants in Toronto less than a month later?
Reports Of Berlusconi’s Defeat May Be Premature
Where have we heard this before?
PRODI WINS the Italian elections, if the first exit polls are confirmed.
It’s a nailbiter, though. Barcepundit is following returns. “According to the latest results, the Casa delle Libert� (Berlusconi) has taken the lead over the Unione (Prodi). Amazing.”
An Instapundit reader predicts;
If Berlusconi loses, it will be a referendum on Italy’s involvement in Iraq. If he wins, it will be due to some obscure domestic issues.
Interestingly, when the exit polls had Prodi ahead, it was a lead item on Yahoo news. As the results drew closer, it had dropped off the front page (though now it is back as “too close to call”).
Eight Dead Were Members of Bandido Motorcycle Gang
According to the OPP news conference presently ongoing, the eight slain men found in an Ontario farm field were all members of the Bandidos motorcycle gang, as is at least one of the five arrested and charged with 8 counts of first degree murder. All were killed by gunshot wounds.
Looks like the Hells Angels denial of responsibility might have been legit, after all – the phrase “internal cleansing” is being used.
CTV is now up with the details.
Nevermind The Data
Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero).
Of course, little matters like data are irrelevant to the larger picture – for as the true believers frequently remind us: cold winters, warm winters, hot summers, cold summers, average summers, more tornados, fewer thunderstorms, heavy snowfall, cold snaps, chinooks, drought and heavy rainfall are all signs of the coming global climate apocollapse. It’s a point the Telegraph also notes;
In response to these facts, a global warming devotee will chuckle and say “how silly to judge climate change over such a short period”. Yet in the next breath, the same person will assure you that the 28-year-long period of warming which occurred between 1970 and 1998 constitutes a dangerous (and man-made) warming.
Indeed.
I’m reminded of this every time the local (or national) news breathlessly reports “breaking a record set in 1913” – often with added commentary that global climate specialists have warned that we “will see more of this”.
If global warming is truly a recent and accelerating phenomenon – why are these hottest/coldest/dryest/wettest records so old? Shouldn’t the majority of records broken be recent ones?
A “Made In France” Solution
“Clearly, this will lead to labor peace in our time.”
Parade Of Lights
Do you suppose that on each April 7 in years to come, that thousands of citizens across the nation will gather in candlelight vigils in remembrance of men who have died by violence?
Update: Dogs and Cats Lie Down Together – In the comments, leftie blogger Ted (“Cerberus”) hammers out common ground with the right, endorsing death penalty for gang members and drug traffickers. Wonders never cease!
(just having a little fun with you, Ted.)
“Nuke the entire site from orbit”
Yes, Sean – I am glad I run linux;
Nearly half of the systems I�ve dealt with over the past month have been badly compromised by advanced trojans and rootkits that are virtually impossible to remove. These programs hook themselves deep into Windows XP and commandeer cricitical parts of the operating system so that they can escape detection and removal by trojan and rootkit repair utilities. While I can remove the malicious software in many cases, it would take me six or seven hours to do a good job and another two or three hours of monitoring the system to be absolutely sure the problem is fixed. On the other hand, it only takes me a few hours to backup user data, rebuild the OS, and then restore data back to the system. Since I charge by the hour, a rebuild is usually cheaper than a repair.
I know that some people are unhappy about having their systems rebuilt from scratch, but the bottom line is that it�s not only the most cost effective repair, but that �nuking the system from orbit� is the only way to 100% guarantee that the problem is fixed for good. It�s not just me saying it either, now Microsoft is admitting it too.
Candid Camera
Photographers with digital cameras have provided, almost instantaneously, an enormous flood of accurate, dramatic, and even shocking images to people around the world. But the daily downloads of news photos include some that are staged, fake, or so lacking in context as to be meaningless, despite the Western media’s best efforts to separate the factual from the fictional.
[…]
For photo editors, new pressures to get it right are coming from Internet bloggers who collect and post critical comments from ordinary citizens and also from niche experts who may have intimate knowledge of the local culture, the U.S. military, or the particular news event in question, Elbert said. “We in the mainstream media have always decided what [images] we want to push out, but now people are disagreeing and questioning accuracy,” he said. “This is really confounding the mainstream media.”
For example;
If big media refrained from hiring stringers from Zarqawi-Bin Laden Paparazzi Studios, this might occur a little less often. On the other hand – that seems to be where they find many of their “opinion” columnists, so why not!
h/t
Colour Gravity: Spring 2006
I take a shortcut down gravel roads when I drive to and from North Battleford. There is a tremendous amount of water laying in the fields and ditches this spring – I had to double back on one part of the trip as the highway was closed by flooding.
The colours on the prairie are fabulous at this time of the year – this evening I stopped to take a few photos. Enjoy!
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(Right clicking on the smaller thumbnails should allow you to open them to full size.)
Colour Gravity *
Oops
Gee, now – what are the odds that the same guy who allegedly molested a 2nd grader in an Edmonton school washroom, who reportedly “ran away” from a hair salon when he found out the price to have his hair “died” – would follow that up by approaching the child and her uncle on said schoolground to ask for a light?
The drama unfolded as school was letting out for the day and parents – nervous after the Grade 2 girl was groped in a school washroom on Monday – were arriving to escort their children home.
Ironically, it was the first day back at school for the little girl herself. Her uncle was with her on the playground when the dishevelled-looking man walked up and asked for a cigarette.
“We just saw this guy walking through the playground,” said Brian Wong, one of those who held down the man. “He matched the description of the guy. My wife and I looked at him and said, ‘that must be the guy.’ We grabbed him and said ‘we have some questions here.’ He started taking off. We tried to get a hold of him until the cops showed up.”
Witness Rob Shrestha said the man was shouting and that four people were grabbing at his hands and legs to keep him from getting away.
[…]
“It looked like him for sure,” said Kyla Mackey, one of a group of parents that were gathered on the playground as school was letting out.
“When they drove away, he just glared at all of us. It was freaky. Then we all cheered.”
Low, as it turns out.
(link fixed)
The More The Left Changes
click image to enlarge
Via Chris in Manitoba (there’s a whole page of this stuff).
H/T to Cjunk, where there’s a pretty good related post.
Reader Tips
Cartoon wars – South Park goes where the New York Times, Toronto Star and CBC fear to tread.
The South Park show ends on a cliffhanger, as the people of America begin burying their heads in the sand to prove their sensitivity to Muslims (they won’t hear the show or see the show with their heads buried, get it?), while a voiceover announces that South Park is also a two-part series, and begins asking that Adam West-Batman style of questioning: “Will the people of America be safe? Will Fox let the Family Guy air? Will they show Mohammed Uncensored? Find out next week to see if Comedy Central pusses out.”
An oldie, but a goodie: TV3 has apologised after a graphic labelling US President George W. Bush a “professional fascist” flashed up during its primetime news.
Plamegate plot twist: turns out the scandal isn’t that a CIA “covert” agent was exposed – it’s that this sleazy idiot once managed to land a job as a US ambassador.
A threatened Michael Totten posts an “Open Letter To Hezbollah”.
Planning a trip to Asia? It pays to know the correct spelling of Taiwan.
It doesn’t pay to be a cyber-bully.
Canadian justice system releases new sentence reduction price list.
I’ll be heading out later today and won’t be back until tomorrow evening – so, you may use this as an “open thread” until then. Keep it clean, play nice.
Global dimming warming brightening
A solution to global warming – pollute more!
Research presented at a major European science meeting adds to other evidence that cleaner air is letting more solar energy through to the Earth’s surface.
Other studies show that increased water vapour in the atmosphere is reinforcing the impact of man-made greenhouse gas emissions.
[…]
Between the 1950s and 1980s, the amount of solar energy penetrating through the atmosphere to the Earth’s surface appeared to be declining, by about 2% per decade.
This trend received some publicity under the term “global dimming”.
Rising Sun (BBC)
Clean air makes bright skies
But in the 1980s, it appears to have reversed, according to two papers published last year in the journal Science.
[,,,]
The reversal of “global dimming” has been proposed in some circles as an alternative explanation for climatic change, removing the need to invoke human emissions of greenhouse gases.
Dr Wild dismissed this picture. His analysis suggests that “global dimming” and the man-made greenhouse effect may have cancelled each other out until the early 1980s, but now “global brightening” is adding to the impact of human greenhouse emissions.
“There is always this argument that maybe the whole temperature rise wasn’t due to greenhouse warming but due to solar variations,” he told the BBC News website.
“During the solar dimming we had really no temperature rise. And only when the solar dimming disappeared could we really see what is going on in terms of the greenhouse effect, and that is only starting in the 1980s.”
Just in case you thought you were alone in your confusion.
Belindarella: “The Slipper Doesn’t Fit”
Joan Tintor on yesterday’s blond bombshell;
She had a good chance to win, Stronach claimed, but her reason for not running is the party�s leadership selection process, which she says renders her incapable of speaking her mind on party renewal. She maintains that she would have been �trapped� in a system in which the grassroots are �ahead� of the party.
This is risible nonsense. In the two months that have passed since Paul Martin announced he would not be leading the Liberals into another election, this is the first inkling we have ever heard from Belinda that she had a problem with the Liberal party�s leadership process.
[…]
As CBC reporter Julie Van Dusen noted on Newsworld today, Stronach applauded the Liberal leadership rules when they were released last month. As the National Post reported on March 20:�I was particularly pleased to see the national party executive agree on rules that will ensure the leadership race is a more open, accessible and accountable process from start to finish, that will guarantee a level playing field for everyone who decides to run,� Ms. Stronach said in a statement.
Stronach’s talking points today, less than three weeks later, are a transparent rationalization for the fact that her weak support among traditional Liberals means she could only win the leadership if she were free to essentially take over the party with new members. Yet Scott Brison, Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae do not seem deterred, though they are essentially starting from the same place.
In the Simpsons episode that features the musical version of �A Streetcar Named Desire,� the closing song includes the line �a stranger�s just a friend you haven�t met.� I guess to Stronach, a �grassroots Liberal� is just somebody whose membership she hasn�t bought yet.
Stephen Taylor weighs in as well.
Entitled To Their Entitlements
Last seen being dragged kicking and screaming from their expense accounts…
According to a quarterly disclosure report, McLellan, the deputy PM in the Paul Martin government .who was defeated in her city riding, billed taxpayers $1,265 for a dozen employees to dine at the exclusive Rideau Club in Ottawa on Feb. 2 – nearly two weeks after she was voted out of office.
Meanwhile, ex-public works minister Scott Brison claimed $1,245 for two dinners at the swanky Italian eatery Mama Theresa’s after the Jan. 23 Grit defeat.
Meanwhile;
Immigration Minister Monte Solberg claimed $5.49 for a breakfast for two at the Lobby Lounge and a $16.71 lunch for two at Subway, while Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day hosted a lunch for three for less than $30…
(Via Maz2 in the comments.)
Oh, And About That Media Strategy
I don’t usually do poll results, but I’ll make an exception in this case;
This latest survey shows that, nationally, 41 percent of eligible and decided Canadian voters would support the Conservative Party if an election were held today, compared with the 36 percent it earned in the January 23rd federal election. The Liberal Party, now under interim leadership, has seen its support drop to 22 percent (down 8 points), and is now in a statistical tie with the New Democratic Party, which has seen its support edge upwards to 21 percent (up 3 points). Support for the Bloc Qu�b�cois in Quebec is stable at 44 percent (up 2 points). Relatively few (13%) voters are currently undecided about which party might deserve their support.
[…]
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has earned solid public approval in his first months in office, with 60 percent of Canadians expressing approval of the job he has done to date.
h/t Neale
Also: a good article by John Gormley in the Saskatoon SP on that very topic – and how certain elements in the media are openly flaunting their political bias by labelling nearly every initiative of our new Prime Minister as “American style”.
Melting Down Our History
Editorial Times on the fate of rare artifacts under a Hamilton “gun amnesty”;
So, are the Liberals out to rewrite history in Canada, by denying its existence? As a government they had little use for veterans on Remembrance Day, barely acknowledging them in government departments throughout Canada.
Now, in the gun control zeal of Liberal dominated Ontario police forces, erasing the tangible evidence of Canadian history is just fine, apparently. After all, according to Deputy Chief Leendertse, gang-bangers are apparently lining up to acquire muskets and antique firearms for their next drive-by pop. Therefore, Canada’s heritage has to go.
The Hamilton police have since “softened” their stance.
Hamilton police will now try to save a rare 200-year-old British musket from the War of 1812 after a plea from the Canadian War Museum not to melt it down.
[…]
“It’s our intention to contact the owner of the flintlock” to ask if they would consider donating it to the national war museum in Ottawa, he said.
“Ultimately, if an owner wants it destroyed, regardless of the historical value, we will be proceeding forward with their wishes for destruction,” he said.
“That includes the Brown Bess.”
Now, try wrapping your head around this one – in a country where citizens enjoy no property rights, where just weeks ago we witnessed an election campaign that promised confiscation of legally owned handguns – Hamilton police are now declaring these same gun owners have magically retained the authority to dictate how firearms are disposed of after they’re surrendered to the state – even in the case of an artifact with national historical significance.
This incident should to be filed away for future reference – say, for example, the day a farmer decides to run a tractor and cultivator through an endangered plant species growing on his property .