To serve and protect: the G20 police riot revisited.There will be no punishment. And most people, in their ignorance, will support their local police with their eyes wide shut.No matter what. No matter the laws they break. No matter whom they assault. No matter whom they kill.In Canada, 2010, the beasts are running the zoo.[H/t Stageleft] …
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Calm down!Gotta go. Supper's ready. :) …
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Calm down!Gotta go. Supper's ready. :) …
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The courtroom demolition of France's case against Hassan Diab continued this morning.Just as he did with the passport evidence earlier this week, Diab's lawyer Don Bayne dropped a sixteen-tonne weight on another misrepresentation in the Record of Case (ROC) certified by the wily French examining magistrate Marc Trévidic.This time it wasn't conflicting accounts of Diab's alleged use of passport(s) to gain entry to France. It was what can only be described as deliberate deception by Trévidic: tailoring his ROC by omitting crucial evidence that made a nonsense of his claims--evidence, …
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Anti-Semitic imagery and stereotypes are just fine with conservatives--if it's Glenn Beck deploying them, and a progressive philanthropist is on the receiving end.No word as yet from the authors of the Ottawa Protocol.UPDATE: (November 12) Suing people for defamation if they incidentally happen to be supporters of Israel is apparently yet another instance of the New Anti-Semitism™. [H/t reader Marcus] …
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My father was a WWII vet, having led the 1st Canadian Calibration Troop through the mud of Europe. A cousin was imprisoned in Buchenwald after being captured behind enemy lines. My ex-spouse's father was a Hong Kong POW, and, like his comrades, was shamefully abandoned by the Canadian government during his captivity and after his release."Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," said George Santayana.Wrong.Remembering dooms us to repetition. We remember everything and learn nothing. We absorb and reproduce the patterns of the past. Look around.We are losing men and women …
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The case against the extradition of Hassan Diab, as laid out this week by lawyer Donald Bayne in a preliminary motion to stay the proceedings, has begun to look unassailable. Yesterday the credibility of crusading French examining magistrate Marc Trévidic, who prepared the Record of Case (ROC) upon which the deportation proceedings are based, was shredded seemingly beyond repair.Readers need to be aware of precisely how little recourse a defendant in an extradition case has available under current legislation. Any Canadian citizen may be extradited by a treaty partner merely by establishing a …
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Or, "Stephen Harper doesn't care about Black people."[H/t Kanye West] …
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Criticism of Israel will shortly become illegal in Canada.That's the message of the "Ottawa Protocol" agreed to behind closed doors this week by a group of international parliamentarians calling themselves the Inter-Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism. The Canadian wing, of course, is the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism.Here is what is about to descend upon us:[The Ottawa Protocol] aims to implement a series of measures to put an end to hateful propaganda in places like universities. In particular, the group aims to stop the growth in the criticism of …
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G20 "best practices" on display in Oakland, California.Oscar Grant was an unarmed, handcuffed Black man murdered by an Oakland cop, Johannes Mehserle. A white judge, Robert Perry, kissed the killer with a sentence of two years less time served--the minimum sentence possible. The cop had claimed that he mistook his gun for a Taser.The judge refused to allow prior use-of-force testimony against the officer, but permitted the defence to introduce evidence about the defendant's past criminal record. Protesting this travesty was deemed illegal. A peaceful protest led to 152 arrests: everyone was …
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While the fate of Canadian critics of Israel is being decided behind closed doors this week, perhaps a little juxtaposition might lighten the mood.Readers may recall that the Final Report of the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism, which conducted one-sided "hearings" earlier this year, was due this past Spring. But somehow it hasn't surfaced, even during this week's international gabfest.Scott Reid, the Conservative MP who chairs the CPCCA, is miffed with the critics. But let's do that juxtaposing thing:Some critics have pointed out that Statistics Canada says there are …
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Early this morning, five thugs broke into the home of anti-racist activists Jason and Bonnie Devine. Their four children were asleep upstairs. The goons attacked Jason and another male with hammers and bats.The Devines are well-known in the area for their anti-Nazi activities, which most recently included leafleting an area where "Aryan Guard" members were known to hang out.The children were not harmed--no doubt the brave Nazis were unaware that they were upstairs sleeping.Enter Calgary Social Services.*Unbelievably, they are threatening to apprehend the Devine children unless the Devines stop …
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As recounted by some ordinary folks--who, post G20, have a somewhat different take on "Serve and Protect" than they once did.Can't happen here? Already has.[H/t Let Freedom Reign] …
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That would be the Turkish flag, pictured above.The management of an Oshawa apartment complex has, for the second year running, ordered a Turkish-born resident to remove the flag from his balcony, where he had placed it to celebrate Republic Day.Quoth the building manager, one "Diane":It was a huge red flag in the middle of the living room window, in the middle of the balcony. It was very ungodly to look at."When Mahmut Bak protested that other residents were permitted to place flags on their balconies, this is what the manager circulated to all residents of the building:Could you please …
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Seriously.Blacklisting Sisters in Spirit, who made the rest of the country aware of hundreds of missing Aboriginal women? Giving the money to--the RCMP, who sat on their thumbs for years, when they weren't terrorizing Aboriginal communities?What a miserable gang of racist goofs the Cons are. There really is no other way to put it. …
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Canadian conservatives don't quite know what to make of the hate-crime conviction of Justin Rehberg--if the thundering silence at Blogging Tories is any indication. Even the Speech Warriors™ appear to have been struck dumb by the case, whether out of sympathy for Rehberg or embarrassment at where their ideology insists on taking them. Or perhaps they're just out of breath from cheering Keith Olbermann's ouster. Yes, let's be generous--perhaps that's it.But all this may change shortly. An intrepid reporter for DawgNews was recently privy to a wide-ranging conversation among anxious peons at …
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Hassan Diab's formal extradition hearing begins on Monday.I have blogged about this shameful case before. Diab, accused of bombing a synagogue in France three decades ago, is up against a prosecutor who has successfully entered suspect new handwriting "evidence" as his case fell apart, and who opposed Diab's right to defend himself against it. He also faces a clearly partial judge who allowed that evidence in, who has permitted delay after unreasonable delay in the process, and has refused to ease Diab's onerous and costly bail conditions.Diab's lawyer is fed up with this unCanadian way of …
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Check out the photo, and then the oh-so-manly commentary here. Dear readers, when you flinch, do you move towards whatever it is you are flinching from?Spectator Obama is obviously "in the action." Only a brain-dead conservative blogger (apologies for the tautology) could imagine otherwise.Needless to say, the Blogging Champion of Delisle and her scabrous commenters are all over this one. …
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If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.--George Orwell Take a good look at the picture above. It could be you.Two BC police officers beat this man, Yao Wei Wu, bloody. The matter was "investigated," and police have now cleared the police of wrongdoing.Wu was innocent of any crime--indeed, the case was one of "mistaken identity." No one seems to be asking the obvious follow-up question: would this have been acceptable if no mistaken identity issue had been involved?The police officers were allowed nearly four months to get their stories straight. …
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...turning a professional blind eye to flagrant police abuse. A few examples, courtesy of the Toronto Star:A grandmother is run over and killed by a recklessly-driving cop. Cleared by the SIU, no charges, but he's fined $500 under the Police Act. Another cop runs over two teenagers in a park. He, too, is exonerated by the SIU.Two cops shoot a camper preparing his supper. Synchronized notes + SIU incompetence = no charges.SIU clears a police officer of wrong-doing after he breaks a handcuffed suspect's jaw in two places. A judge expresses shock and throws out the case against the suspect.A …
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Once in a while I enjoy a good pile-on. I'm only human, and the so-and-so got up my nose. …
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...but when the smoke cleared and the tumult and the shouting died, the Teabaggers elected all of five Senators (out of 37 races) and 39 Congresspersons (out of 435).This followed the injection of unimaginably huge sums of cash into their various campaigns (after the Supreme Court had lifted all spending limits), numerous reports of voter intimidation and suppression, and the Rand Paul Stomp.We didn't see the emergence of the Tea Party as a viable political force. They were routed.Joe Miller--toast. Witchy Christine O'Donnell--spurned. Sharron Angle has only her Second Amendment remedies left …
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"The executive of the modern state," Karl Marx and Frederick Engels once famously observed, "is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie." In Canada this delegation now appears to have been dispensed with, as a prominent member of the class in question will now serve directly as Harper's next Chief of Staff.Nigel Wright is the Managing Director of Onex, a vast conglomerate with fingers in almost every pie you can think of. He will not even give up his Onex job for the duration of his employ. Needless to say, Harper's biddable ethics lapdog Mary Dawson sees …
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To sum up a confusing few days in London, Ontario:Celebrated amateur demographer [demagogue, shurely? Ed.] Mark Steyn was invited to speak at the London Convention Centre by the conservative group Strictly Right. He was dis-invited by the managers of the place, who cited "security concerns." This undoubtedly delighted the aforesaid Strictly Right, who had now gained some unexpected free publicity.The Usual Suspects, not excluding Steyn himself, went into a predictable tizzy, said tizzy being fed by unsubstantiated rumours that Islamist Hordes™ had lobbied for the man's exclusion from the …
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Readers who have been following the case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the Iranian woman convicted of adultery, will be pleased to learn that the original sentence of death by stoning will not be carried out.She is to be hanged instead, as early as this Wednesday.Ashtiani has already been given 99 strokes of the lash because a picture purported to be of her appeared in the Western media: the person photographed was not wearing the obligatory head covering.No doubt to ensure judicial fairness, Iranian authorities have arrested and detained her son, her lawyer and two German journalists.Why not …
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Enjoy![H/t brebis noire] …
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The Rights and Democracy farce continues apace.At last week's Board meeting, the long-awaited forensic audit of the organization, expected to be made public last Spring, was unveiled. But not to the public.Small wonder. As reported, it uncovered nothing fraudulent. All that sound and fury, not to mention money--a quarter of a million dollars of your taxes and mine--was your classic Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.The Clown Car brigade presently running the place has had quite a year, though. Fully one-third of the staff has quit or been fired. Meanwhile, Board of Directors' expenses …
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Wound and torture a kid, threaten him with gang rape, cage him for nine years, and then go for another forty.Some Austrian pedophile? Nope: American military officers dispensing American "justice."Sick-making. But at least we'll have the pleasure of listening to the kangaroos' heads explode and the brass buttons pop off their beribboned chests when they hear that Omar Khadr will be doing eight years instead.Not that another day in jail could be morally justified under any known standards of justice. But this isn't about justice, of course: it's about revenge and bloody-mindedness by brass …
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From Washington, D.C., Dr. "Mad" Dawg reports:A bitterly non-partisan crowd turned out in the US capital yesterday to mock the real world and the people who live in it. Carrying signs such as the one pictured above, each reportedly vetted by grammar Nazis Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson, the participants, almost certainly fewer than the six billion claimed, listened to music by an Islamist convert and some "comedy" and then went home.I wonder how these self-conscious boulevardiers of protest would have fared if a platoon of American soldiers who have seen gore in Iraq had parachuted down into …
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How the American Right does democracy--one kick, punch and false arrest at a time.[H/t Sister Sage] …
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Kate McMillan has the goods.(The fact that every Muslim boy gets the Mohammed moniker might just have something to do with this new name game, but mentioning that would spoil the narrative.)[Didn't I just use that photo? My bad. --Ed.] …
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"Scientists say" that political views are part of our genetic inheritance.Peter Schweizer will be pleased. He's another "expert," who has proven to his own satisfaction that conservatives are nicer folks than liberals, and are having a lot more babies.Given that argument alone is clearly pointless, as are political campaigns and elections--you can't persuade DNA to change--there appears to be only one thing to do about it. Consider it our duty to the Party. …
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Norm Spector is moaning today about the "mainstream media" burying (but not, for the most part, excising) a piece of information about Omar Khadr's "trial," namely, that his statements before the Gitmo kangaroos are not sworn testimony and hence not subject to cross-examination.Why this should matter one way or the other is beyond my comprehension. We've already had his coerced confession, and a plea deal is sealed no matter what the outcome of the sentencing phase (unless the "jury" opts to give him a better one, which is about as likely as Stephen Harper appearing as a last-minute character …
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David Chen, the Toronto shopkeeper arrested for defending his store against a thief, has been acquitted. I hope he sues for malicious prosecution.The most bizarre wrinkle of this abusive proceeding--which you and I paid for--is that the thief was given a reduced sentence in return for testifying against his victim.Eugene McDermott, the Crown prosecutor, was the unsuccessful Conservative candidate for Don Valley East in 2006. …
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This has already been well-covered: in Canada, cops can assault and kill without consequences. Who knew?So I merely note, in passing, that the SIU lapdogs have not yet issued their report on the death of Junior Alexander Manon, nearly six months ago. I wonder why not? …
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Thanks to the sleazy Librocons, private member's Bill C-300 went down to defeat this evening. Former human rights advocate and American ex-pat Michael Ignatieff arranged to be out of the House of Commons for the vote, and he took twelve disciples with him.That was sufficient to kill the Bill: even if the four absent New Democrats (and I'd like an accounting here) had been present, the Bill would have lost 140-139. Liberal Whip Marcel Proulx is reported to have told Liberal members to stay away.The Bill was meant to ensure that Canadian mining companies guilty of human rights or environmental …
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...Dr. Michael Welner, who's had a bit of a go at Omar Khadr today. At this point I think I'll just leave the ambiguity intact.Defence lawyers are expected to present their own mental-health experts and the cross-examination of Dr. Welner promises to be compelling.Impeaching Dr. Welner for his reliance on the work of Nicolai Sennels, a Danish psychologist who ran a failed de-radicalization program, will be central to that cross-examination.Among the controversial Dr. Sennels’ more spectacular claims is that "massive inbreeding within the Muslim culture during the last 1.400 years may have …
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Shorter Bev Oda, revised:"KAIROS is a superb organization doing valuable work. I recommend that we not fund it."[via Kady O'Malley] …
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The escape from Toronto begins. …
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Stuck together with Krazy Glue: police, prosecutors, judges, prison guards--and the National Parole Board.A cop rapes eight women, including a 15-year-old? Four years in jail. Considered a "moderate risk" to reoffend, he's turned loose on the community anyway.No punishment for the killers of Robert Dziekanski. No punishment for a second killing by one of those RCMP officers--other than a three-month suspension of his driver's licence.A young activist challenges The System. He's arrested, and arrested again for taking part in a university panel discussion. Bail conditions are imposed by a …
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