Not Thinking It Through

Animal "rights" activists have been harassing a Canadian man who was attacked by a bear and killed it with a stick using his uninjured arm.

For any animal "rights" activists involved in this episode, let me point out something you seem to have overlooked: He... killed... a... bear... with A STICK!!!!

Starlost

The infamous '70s sci fi series Starlost has been released on DVD.

Haven't we suffered enough?

Lobster Bid

"Big Dee Dee", a 10 kilogram lobster in New Brunswick, has been saved from the cook pot by a vegetarian who bought him at auction for $3000. Said vegetarian, no surprise, intends to release Big Dee Dee into the wild.

As lobster lover, I am always delighted by this sort of story. Not only is the owner of the lobster $3000 richer, but we now have a chance to catch the crustacean again so he can meet his date with destiny and a nice bowl of melted butter.

And maybe a loaf of fresh, hot French bread on the side.

And a bottle of decent champagne.

Excuse me, I'm getting a bit peckish.

Isn't capitalism grand?

Ingsoc Canada

One of the tropes of science fiction involves fugitives from a future fascist American police state fleeing over the border to a free Canada. Now, thanks to a Canadian Human Rights Commission that operates like a star chamber, it looks as though the flow is more likely to be in reverse.

Mind you, if The New York Times has its way, there might not be any place to go.

Freedom of Speech RIP

Remember that boy who was cited for calling Scientology a "cult", but then the Crown dropped the charges after the public outcry? It may not have been the "victory" some thought it was. According to Canada's National Post,

It was quickly pointed out by civil libertarians that the eventual happy outcome did nothing to reverse the consequences of the initial error. If expressive materials at a public protest can be confiscated pending two weeks of review by prosecutors, then not much is left of the right to protest, practically speaking. What few in Britain have pointed out is how vague and pathetic the text of the Public Order Act is. Objectively, one cannot say that the police officers acting as a praetorian guard for Scientology were overstepping their bounds under the act. No one ever calls a religion a "cult" without intending to insult it, and any "alarm or distress" thereby resulting must entirely be in the eye and mind of the beholder. The boy was, under the act, arguably quite guilty.

It constitutes no "victory" for freedom of expression that he was let off arbitrarily just because the public took his side against a secretive and widely ridiculed religious group. On the contrary: the police succeeded in communicating their real message to those who might wish to imitate him. Watch what you say. We have enough power to give you a hard time, whether the crown backs us up in the end or not. And make damned sure your targets are relatively unpopular, or you might not find so many columnists and activists leaping to your defence.

And so freedom of speech gives way to self-censorship.

A Modest Proposal

Lamperd of Canada has a modest idea for improving airline safety in these troubled time: Force all passengers to wear bracelets that allow the stewardesses to taser them by remote control.

I suspect that the owners of Lamperd have a great deal of stock in railway companies.

Global Gore Effect?

If the news out of Canada is right, then those "drowning" polar bears had better start growing thicker coats.

Fast.

Levant Update

More on the Ezra Levant interrogation as he comments on the insane logic of what traffics in Canada under the Orwellian label of human rights: A murder cannot be compelled to apologise for his actions, but a publisher can.

Cartoon Wars: Canada

Ezra Levant, former publisher of the Western Standard, was hauled before the Alberta "Human Rights" Commission for the Thoughtcrime of publishing the Danish Mohammed cartoons and was interrogated by one Shirlene McGovern from the Ministry of Love. Rather than rolling over and saying "Please Ma'am may I have another?" Mr. Levant fought back and made sure a video camera was rolling.

Part 1:

Part 2:

and Part 3:

Mr. Levant hits the nail squarely on the proverbial when he points out that it is the Jihadists who are defaming Islam by trying to shut him up and bringing "hatred" down on moderate Muslims by claiming to speak in their name. Meanwhile, over at NRO, Mark Steyn had this to say about the episode:

Ms McGovern, a blandly unexceptional bureaucrat, is a classic example of the (minority-rights) syndrome. No "vulnerable" Canadian Muslim has been attacked over the cartoons, but the cartoonists had to go into hiding, and a gang of Muslim youths turned up at their children's grade schools, and Muslim rioters around the world threatened death to anyone who published them, and even managed to kill a few folks who had nothing to do with them. Nonetheless, upon receiving a complaint from a Saudi imam trained at an explicitly infidelophobic academy and who's publicly called for the introduction of sharia in Canada, Shirlene McGovern decides that the purely hypothetical backlash to Muslims takes precedence over any actual backlash against anybody else.

It's refreshing that Mr. Levant understands that liberty is the freedom to tell the government to push off-- especially when it acts as the enforcement arm of the country's sworn enemies.

Update:

The Camel's Nose

The Muslim Students Association at the University of Toronto demanded that halal meals be served at Bluff's, the campus restaurant. The university, showing the proper dhimmitude, caved in like a Styrofoam cup filled with petrol.

Problem solved? Hardly. The MSA promptly showed their sense of compromise and reconciliation by saying that the change in the menu wasn't good enough because the restaurant still served alcohol and played dance music. According to Ahmad Jaballah, a former MSA executive and current Scarborough Campus Students Union VP students and equity,

This initiative was brought forth solely by Bluff’s without ever consulting the MSA or Muslim students. If this was a deliberate accommodation, it’s kind of offensive in giving us the food in a manner unsuitable to us.

Translation: That's what appeasement gets you.

Dhimmitude in Canada

Vancouver, Canada is introducing strict new anti-smoking laws that will prohibit lighting up in almost all public places-- unless you're a Muslim having a go at the old hookah:

Vancouver's hookah-parlour owners are celebrating after winning an exemption Thursday from a proposed new bylaw that will ban smoking on most sidewalks in commercial districts, in bus shelters and even in taxis passing through Vancouver.

In giving the bylaw unanimous approval-in-principle, Vancouver city council members bowed to arguments that hookah lounges provide an important cultural space for the city's Muslims and granted them a temporary exemption.

So, can I claim that the pub is "an important cultural space" or is that line of argument off limits for dhimmis?

Dietary Dhimmitude

Oh, yeah. Violate my rights, baby!

Canada stands firm as a custard according to the Toronto Sun:

A Muslim inmate has won $2,000 and a partial human rights victory over a Correctional Service of Canada policy not to replace bacon with a halal diet for Islam-worshiping cons.

If this is a "human rights" violation, then Hot Pockets are a crime against humanity.

The Masque of the Vote

And war is peace freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength.

Canadians can now vote wearing a mask. Sorry, a full face veil, niqab or burka.

I sincerely hope that the whole of the Canadian electorate takes this to heart and shows up to vote wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses, Halloween masks, balaclavas, stockings, ski masks, dominoes and ghost costumes.

Polling day, Mardis Gras, dhimmitude; what's the difference?

Canada on Mars

From Canada.com:

B.C. robotics firm lands Martian contract

Now that is what I call an aggressive foreign trade policy.

Polarising Bears

Australia's Daily Telegraph used this photo in a boilerplate article on the threat of global warming. The lead paragraph is interesting.

They cling precariously to the top of what is left of the ice floe, their fragile grip the perfect symbol of the tragedy of global warming.

Distressing... Or would be if it weren't for the fact that the bears were perfectly safe from the threat of man's sins against Gaia global warming. The photo is three years old and the original caption was,

Mother polar bear and cub on interesting ice sculpture carved by waves. photo © Amanda Byrd.

Meanwhile, Icelanders are having their own climate issues. Only in their case it isn't about polar bears having to tread water, but how the ice pack is so thick that the great furry monsters can practically stroll straight into Reykjavik.

That should liven thing up a bit.

Update: Perhaps I shouldn't be too flippant. After all, spouting heresy can be a dangerous occupation now that the priests have consulted the oracles IPCC has issued its report and made known the will of blessed Gaia declared the debate closed.

Update: The New York Times is Johnny-on-the-spot over global warming-- in 1932.

It Only Took Fifty-Six Years

Britain is about to make its last payments on its war loans from the United States and Canada.

It was the finance charges that were the killer.