Stay focused, human rights commissions!

Further to Mrs. P's post below, China does indeed have "deeper healthcare woes": too many in authority do not care for the health (or the very lives) of Chinese citizens at any stage. If the person is worthless, why make a fuss over the disposal of the corpse?

Meanwhile in Canada, WE know the REAL meaning of "human rights", and focus our energies accordingly.

Joke of the day

Q. How many bureaucrats does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A. We're not entirely sure (that's not our department), but that's a good question (thanks for sharing). We'll strike a committee to discuss it, hold hearings, commission a report, and get back to you... in a year or so.

From our far, FAR, beyond freakin satire files

Chinese officials have sought to contain public outrage after workers at a hospital dumped 21 dead fetuses and infants' bodies near a river bank.



For many ordinary Chinese, who often lament lax and increasingly expensive medical care, the dumping of the 21 dead fetuses and infants is indicative of deeper healthcare woes.


"This is shocking. It makes me wonder whether this is a civilized society," said one commentator on a Chinese-language Internet website.

A civilized society? Deeper "healthcare woes"? Must it be pointed out that the outrage is not at the killing of these children, but merely the inappropriate method of dumping their bodies? Lord have mercy.

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Ontario police are fairies and wimps.

They get regular guys like Steve Paikin to do their job.

"I think I actually at one point stood between Duncan and the protesters. As did one of our guests, Janet Ecker, a former finance minister. There were two OPP officers in attendance, watching in the wings. But they made no move to intervene, one assumes, because they concluded this was a boisterous protest, but no danger to the minister’s safety… the police, I’m told, were urged not to intervene, lest pictures of demonstrators being hauled off by the cops show up all over YouTube."

Or no one at all.

Several black holes have developed in the enforcement of law in Canada -- stare hard, for instance, at Caledonia, Ont. -- and there have been numerous campus events involving physical intimidation about which nothing was done. Each capitulation makes the next more likely.



Free speech is very nice "in theory." But to exist in practice, it must be enforced.

Your weekly dose of Warren

Pedophilia is by no means confined to the Catholic Church -- and the Boy Scouts -- though they are the exclusive institutional targets of liberal media. Nor is there evidence, beyond the selectivity of news coverage, that the plague is not worse in secular institutions. It is a problem to be confronted throughout our society, wherever children are left in trusted adult care; and it is a problem that would seem to have been vastly compounded by the collapse of traditional sexual morality over the last couple of generations.

Rome has, in fact, taken the lead in dealing with it, and has already put in place the most exacting safeguards against the depredations of sexual perverts inside the Church. Pope Benedict has, personally, done more to this end than, so far as I can see, any other living human, and is thus the least appropriate target for attacks.

Within the church, the need of renewal remains much deeper than the pedophile scandals. In the time both leading up to and since Vatican II, the faithful have experienced one of her greatest historical crises: a catastrophic retreat before, and compromise with, the "Zeitgeist" -- of modern worldly "libertarian" moral values and norms.



The answer isn't more retreat and compromise. The answer is to return to the splendour of the Mandate of Christ. And this necessarily involves implacable opposition to that Zeitgeist.

It's all worth reading, as usual. Oh, that not a few church bureaucrats would take the advice.

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Little People in Big Trouble

After more than 50 years of happy play, the classic Little People are coming under government scrutiny.

It figures that they would be picked on. After all, they're just little people. They probably can't afford a good lawyer. They can't even take up arms. Or legs.

It certainly is sad that a child choked to death on one of these things, but it still seems a bit ridiculous for a government agency to be issuing statements and guidelines about something that anyone with common sense already knows. But anyway, thanks, Health Canada, for arriving breathlessly at the scene half a century after these toys came out to tell us that SMALL TOYS ARE BAD FOR BABIES! If you're going to urge people to throw away every toy that presents a choking hazard to children not in the toy's target age range, the Lego company might as well fold right now.

So, DOH readers, (yes, I'm talking to both of you) if you have any Little People you want to discard, send them to me. I'll take good care of them. I've been wanting one of those castles and besides, I can't bear to think of Garbin (far right in this undated group shot) in the garbage.

P.S. My son tells me that at Grandma's house, the only figures still remaining with our old castle are the Queen and the Knight. How's that for a small-scale tale of chivalry and romance? More evidence that Sir Garbin the Loyal doesn't deserve to end his days at the town dump.

Score 1 for Thuggery

Deborah Gyapong, Kathy Shaidle, Free Canuckistan, Blazing Cat Fur and Small Dead Animals have the low-down on the cancellation of Ann Coulter's speech at the University of Ottawa last night.

The German law forbidding homeschooling was established by the Nazis in 1938.

That about says it all.

German family seeks asylum in Canada for the crime (in Germany) of caring about their children's education.

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LifeSiteNews is Under Attack

STAND STRONG, LIFESITE NEWS!!

I'm sending them my donation today. And will never again support the CCODP ("Development and Peace")--unless they repent, reform, and totally clean house. (Fat chance.)

The truth cannot be suppressed, and shame on anyone who tries to do so. Keep in mind that Development and Peace:
1) is the baby of the CCCB (Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops)
2) is powerful and well-connected
3) has a large political bureaucracy with a left-wing agenda
4) stands to lose financially if the truth is known (and that, I believe, is their main concern)

Tellingly, those who operate LSN (and CLC) are Catholics faithful to the Magisterium; D&P? not so much...

Do read the entire piece. It's all here. But you need to go to LSN's site for the links.


Zenit declines LSN ad

Dear readers,

This letter is hard to write. We are under attack - a sustained and focused attack, and need your help and support at this time. Let me explain.

The executives of Development & Peace, the official international development organization of the Canadian Bishops' Conference, have issued a verbal barrage of assaults against LifeSiteNews.com that is having adverse and tangible effects on our organization.

Over the last year we have watched the heads of D&P unabashedly deny dozens of incontrovertible pieces of evidence proving they have been using Catholic donations to fund pro-abortion groups.

And now, in the most recent part of the saga, D&P has released a document, "Questioning Development and Peace," in which they not only again totally deny the evidence, which can only be described as irrefutable, but also slander LifeSiteNews.

I don't read this guy often enough.

The incomparable Rex Murphy on Christopher Hitchens:

Pope Benedict may be many things, but banal is hardly one of them. Even the obsessionally anti-Catholic will have noted — if they’ve paid any serious attention at all — that his mind is subtle, exercised, scholarly and profound. Now, what one-word adjective can claim all those qualities I’m not sure of, but I know that “banal” is not it.



As for this “stench of evil,” why does Hitchens choose to tell us it’s beyond “the power of exorcism to dispel”?


I presume the affected belief in exorcism is a display of tormented irony, but I still hold it curious that Hitchens — who would throw exorcism together with the Sacraments, the Mass, and the power of prayer into the bucket of outdated idiocies — calls “exorcism” into service for his rhetoric. It may be that what he strains so mightily and vociferously against has, still, some forbidden and irresistible allure for him.

h/t Kathy Shaidle

CBC somewhat akin to "rancid cloud of wandering space gas": poll

Perhaps due to an insufficient number of hate crimes in the news, the CBC is now spilling ink over the public's perception of discrimination in Canada: 

Aboriginal Peoples, Muslims face discrimination most: poll

The headline makes it sound like this poll has revealed the fact that Aboriginals and Muslims are most often the victims of discrimination in our country, but the article states only that "One in three Canadians believe that Aboriginal Peoples and Muslims are the frequent targets of discrimination...." and "More than a tenth of Canadians surveyed said they thought Jews, Chinese and anglophones inside Quebec suffered from persistent discrimination...."

Instances of prejudice or racism surely do happen in Canada, as they do in any society made up of sinful human beings. But how is it in any way useful to report on how often randomly selected persons guess it is happening?  Not that a CBC- commissioned poll on how often unjust discrimination really does occur would be any more useful, or even possible. How could one tell the truthful respondents from the cranks who cry "Discrimination!" every time they don't get their own way? Maybe the discriminators will helpfully own up to their misdeeds in order to give us the most accurate picture.

In the sidebar of the article you will see a link that invites you to "Tell...your stories of acceptance or discrimination." Here's my story: I accept that the CBC practices no discrimination when it comes to determining what is news and what is useless effluence, but I still wish I didn't have to pay for it.

Well, can you blame the guy?

After all, the American media has just spent the last three years trying to convince themselves and everyone else that Obama "is kind of ... God."

Interesting article at The Telegraph. "Barack Obama tries to find a scapegoat for his own hubris"

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Perhaps Mr Obama's biggest political flaw is that he seems to view himself as the personification of virtue and right-thinking.

Bang. On.

Mr. Steyn:

Decline is a choice. The selfish pampered profligates of the postwar West made theirs, and for good measure and to ward off the day of reckoning consigned their kids and grandkids to it, too. It would seem to me unlikely that the next generation will be willing or so easily diverted by electronic novelties to reduce themselves to serfs in a vain attempt to sustain an unsustainable system. So something will happen: Greek riots? Total societal collapse? Best to keep the jetpack fuelled and ready. If you can find somewhere to go.

Gold is looking better and better all the time. But then again, you can't eat it.

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DOH and Kolya Witko have something in common

Actually, a lot in common. But we'll start with NOT having a crush on Sarah Polley. Of course, in the case of Mrs. Beazly and myself, we never did. Mr. Witko cites Polley's latest bit of goofy hypcrisy by linking to this story, and adds his own amusing take. (PG13 language warning).

So, I suppose Polley is saying that its okay for her to use corporate dollars to fund her films, but they shouldn't get any credit for it.

[...]



The most hilarious thing about Polley's actions are their likely results. By trumpeting her moral outrage and pissily yanking her name from the project, she ensures that far more people know of her involvement in it then otherwise would. Instead of simply being the director of a short film no one would have noticed, she is now the principled ex-director of a short film making headlines for the whiff of corporate greed wafting up. So, not only does the fact that she directed this film get far more publicity, she increases her standing among the moral heavyweights of the age.

Such as Al Gore, Bono, Oprah...
Don't ever get between a girl and her self-righteous delusions--especially with margarine.

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Been so busy lately

...that I have not kept up with the inimitable Mr. Warren. Oh that everyone, from presidents to bishops, would heed his words:

For our governments [or dioceses] have created vast bureaucracies, employing immense numbers whose livelihoods depend entirely (whether they realize it or not) upon the capacity of profit-earning people to pay constantly increasing taxes.

[...]

The idea that we can spend our way out of a debt [or faith] crisis -- or what I called above, "Keynesianism gone nuts" -- has already been rejected by the Tea Party movement in the U.S., and has always been rejected by voters of conservative tendency. They know what's wrong with the present order, and have an important teaching function to the rest of the electorate, which doesn't get it yet.



But more urgently, we are in need of a positive conception of how to rebuild economy and society, when Nanny State collapses under her own weight. For yelling "run!" is only a short-term solution.

People of good will, it's time to take back the culture.

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Be careful what you name your blog...

Because it will come back to bite you in the butt again and again. And that's all I'll say about my truly appalling stint on Coren, except for thanks to CTS Joanne (and all the staff at Edmonton studio) as well as Mike Z. for their help and support and the laughs we had. You guys and gals are great.

Just arrived home

From a fabulous weekend in Edmonton, where I attended the Western Canadian Catholic Homeschool Conference. Joseph Pearce was the keynote speaker. If you have never read this man's books, RUN, don't walk to the nearest book store or library and start requesting them. He is brilliant and very entertaining. If you ever get a chance to hear him speak, do take advantage of it.

Up with Pixar!

   Pixar's latest movie, "Up", came away with a couple of Oscars last Sunday night, one for Best Animated Feature and one for Best Original Score. Any praise of this film is well deserved - this is a great movie and Michael Giacchino's music (like the scores he wrote for "The Incredibles" and "Ratatouille") is magnificent.  It also received a nomination for Best Picture, but I wonder if its being an animated film was a disadvantage in that category. Brad Bird, creator and director of "The Incredibles", has pointed out that, much to his annoyance, animation is still regarded as a genre rather than as a medium through which stories of any genre may be told.  I understand that the Academy wants to recognize the great skill that goes into animation, but I don't think that animated films should be bundled off to their own category any more than, say, a film shot in black and white ought to be. Perhaps the category of "Best Animated Feature" should become a technical award for "Best Animation". If a film is good enough to be nominated for Best Animated Feature, it ought to be good enough to stand against all the other Best Picture nominees, as "Up" did.

 In any case, I am glad of Pixar's success. This is a company that knows how to make good films. They are truly family films, although I hate to use that term because it often brings to mind dull movies that range from sickly sweet to idiotically vulgar, or which are laced with unamusing double entendres (to keep us grownups entertained, of course). We can generally tell these wretched offerings by their trailers and have been lucky enough to steer clear of most of them, but when I see trailers for a feature like "G-Force", I always ask myself, "How bad were the ideas this producer turned down that day?"

  A good film (or book, or short story) is one that says something true, and does so in an engaging manner. "Up" is ostensibly a fantasy, but it has much to say about real life: our aspirations are not always realized, but the death of particular hopes does not have to mean the death of hope. A faithful marriage is indeed a great adventure. And talking dogs are FUNNY!!

 If you haven't already seen "Up", give it a whirl. You won't be sorry.

On the Mark

Mark Shea has the culture of death's number in this post. Particularly disturbing is the article about child-sized condoms.

Whenever I read articles like this I have a little game I like to play. I first learned of this game from one of my brothers. Take the title and lyrics of any love song and substitute the word "fudge" for "love". For example, U2's "One"

One love
One life
When it's one need
In the night
One love
We get to share it
Leaves you baby if you
Don't care for it

becomes

One fudge
One life (you can change that to 'knife' to make it even more fun!)
When it's one need
In the night
One fudge
We get to share it
Leaves you baby if you
Don't care for it

See how amusing that can be? Now try something similar with the article about the folks who are making condoms for 12 year olds and the lunatics who are applauding them. Instead of using the word "fudge", let's replace all references to sexual activity with references to smoking:

Extra light cigarettes for boys as young as 12 could soon be on our shelves. 

The Huffin'n'Puffin Funstix are going on sale in Switzerland after research found that not enough 12 to 14-year-old boys were paying attention to their nicotine ingestion.

The cigarettes are likely to end up on sale in Britain, said their manufacturer Screwtape Amusements Inc. A spokesman said the UK would be ‘top priority’ if the company expanded abroad, considering it had the highest teenage smoking rate in Europe. D. Wormwood said: ‘At the moment we are only producing the Funstix in Switzerland. ‘But the UK is certainly a very attractive market since there is a very high rate of underage smoking.’ 


A standard cigarette has a nicotine content of 1.0 to 2.1 milligrams in comparison with the Funstix's 0.75 milligrams. Both are the same length – 190mm.

According to a study of 13 to 20-year-olds, a quarter said that a standard cigarette was too tarry.
B. Eezlebub, of teenage smokers' rights group Straight Talking Puffer Education, said: ‘We know young people are smoking and if this is what it takes to protect them, we need to go along with it.’

How far do you think that would fly?

What he said goes double double for me.

I got a chuckle from this letter which appeared in Mark Steyn's mailbox this week. Fellow Canadian  Mike writes:

NO FREE LUNCH (OR COFFEE)

McDonalds is offering free coffee for two weeks to fight Tim Hortons up here in Canada, Mark, and as you might expect, while the coffee is free, there’s a 20 minute wait for it. So this morning as I was trying to get my McMuffin combo, I inquired whether there was a shorter line for people buying food or if I could pay for a "quick" coffee. I was greeted then with the traditional Canadian refrain: "NO TWO-TIER [COFFEE].” I fled the restaurant before the CBC arrived with the tar and feathers… although a bit of that tar with some hot water would have been nice with my McMuffin.

So please: Alert the ObamaCare fence-sitters about the costs of “free” stuff. 

I encountered a sadder example of the cost of "free" stuff a couple of weeks ago at my son's bowling tournament. I overheard another parent (a man who appeared to be in his late forties or early fifties) telling a friend that he was in need of a knee replacement but was deemed too young to receive one. He was lamenting the fact that, by the time he's old enough to get on the waiting list, his kids will be grown - it will be too late to do the things he wants to do with them now, but can't because of his bad knee. (This is a perfect example of how government annexation of health care is tantamount to the state taking ownership of your body, a topic upon which Mr. Steyn has often commented.)

  Perhaps this man will choose to go to the United States to have his knee replaced, if he can afford it. He didn't seem to be a famous politician or an NHL player, so if he wants the health care he has already paid for with his tax dollars, he will most likely end up waiting to get on a waiting list for it. But hey, at least that new knee will be "free"... providing he gets to the top of the list before he dies or before the bureaucrats doling out the knee replacements decide he has become too old to be knee-worthy. Maybe we should all be put on waiting lists when we turn 40 in order to maximize the possibility that our free knees (or hips, or whatever) will be offered to us when we actually need them. Of course, if they're installed only months before we succumb to old age, they can always be recycled, like dentures sometimes are.

You can have my iPod (and my cross rib roast) ...

when you pry them from my cold, dead hands. A great piece by Brian Lilley at MercatorNet, re: mandatory mortifications (a.k.a. carbon fasts) in homage to Gaia via the Climate Change Church of Settled Science.

Whereas the Church suggests that you lay off the cheeseburgers on Friday and not covet your neighbour's flat screen TV as part of your plan for eternal salvation, the environmental movement proposes to tax both the burger and the flat screen and force McDonald's to sell falafels on Mondays all in the name of carbon emissions. The old saying is that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, but some days I think the greens missed that lesson, and, assuming that honey was oppressive to both bees and flies, decided to force feed us a good dose of vinegar.

After years of trying to scare us with imminent doom, I think it is time for a rest.

We are defined by giant inflatable beavers.

At the opening ceremonies of the Vancouver Olympics we learned that "some say what defines us
is something as simple as please and thank you". Now, apparently, the powers that be have changed their minds:

I have no convincing proof of my own prescience, since this was only printed in a gag newspaper that exactly three other people read, but here is my 2006 prediction for the Vancouver games:

The Turin closing ceremonies are going to be a tough act to follow, and in order to be up to the challenge Olympic organizers are even now embarking on a strict regime of hallucinogenic drugs and wine coolers in order to come up with the best possible ideas for the grand opening ceremonies.  Ottawa's own prolific composer Willem Fronk is composing the Olympic theme, "We're Just Glad to be at the Olympics", to which children dressed as beavers will dance around a moose dressed as a pack of bacon.

I wish I'd put money on this.

Loo, loo; vind to my loo!

(Alternate title: No, I’m just here for the naan.)
I’ve been mulling (or perhaps chewing) over this story ever since Mark Steyn posted a link to it in his sidebar a wee bit back.

Aussies urged to vindaloo against violence

Melburnians have always been known as foodies, but now they have a new reason to eat out.


Fed up [heh] with violence and the bad wrap [sic—or was it meant as a friendly non-racist ethnic flatbread pun?] her city was receiving, Mia Northrop decided to embrace Melbourne's love of food in a show of support for the Indian and migrant community.


On February 24, she is encouraging people all over Australia to take part in Vindaloo Against Violence.


Ms Northrop, who works as a digital media designer, says the idea is simple.


"The idea is that you just go to your local Indian restaurant and just dine on Indian food as a way of embracing the Indian community," she said.

As opposed to just going to your local Indian restaurant and just dining on Indian food because you are just hungry or just like the taste.

And anyway, how would anyone know? Diners were urged to register online for the event, but does it stop there? Do you wear your heart on your sleeve and announce your racism-free attitude when you come in the door of the eatery (thus embarrassing—or perhaps annoying—the proprietors, as in, "Hello there! Some of my best friends are folks like you!"), or do you say nothing and allow them to think that it’s just a good business day?

I know this event has passed, but it got me wondering about something: while the Melburnian “foodies” (what is a foodie, anyway? In my day, they were called gluttons, but no matter) were bending over backward trying to show the local “migrant communities” how totally non-racist they were, was anyone vetting the eating establishments themselves to find out if they were racism-free zones? You wouldn’t want to support racism in any way, would you? Even if it was exceptionally tasty?

Were the migrant-community restaurant owners interviewed as to their political, racial and religious views? Where they asked if they harboured hatred or prejudice or dislike against any identifiable groups? Were Hindu restaurateurs asked for their views on Sikhs or Muslims? Were Muslim eatery-owners asked if they hated Jews or other assorted infidels? Were Indian Christian (yes, there are some) restaurant-owners asked if they disliked gays or atheists?

And if so, were those establishments singled out and/or boycotted by the totally non-racist Vindaloo Against Violence Foodies? If not, why not?

Put in a slightly different setting, if you lived in the Southern U.S. and you knew that a really great steakhouse was owned and operated by a good old boy with old timey religion KKK sympathies, would you refuse to patronize his establishment? Or would you “Prime Rib Against Prejudice” in order to show him how tolerant you are of diversity?

Well, no, that’s different, the Vindaloo Against Violence Foodies would say. And as soon as they figure out how, they’ll let you know, but right now, that fragrant rogan josh and butter chicken are just too… distracting…. buttery… chicken…. korma… mmm….

In the meantime, the takeaway lesson is that when it comes to being totally non-racist, the policy is Tell, but Don’t Ask. And that it’s OK (praiseworthy, even) to patronize the business of someone who may hate your western culture and might even want you dead, because that’s what multiculturalism is all about.

And besides, the naan is free with the buffet.




Postscript: because this is Canada, and the word “racism” probably already has us flagged at the CHRC, allow me to state that I really like vindaloo.

Global warming doesn't kill people: stupidity kills people.

Baby survives parents' global warming suicide pact.

They succeeded in murdering their toddler son. Really, really sad. Link found at SDA.

Leraar draagt hoofddoek als protest

I couldn't have said it better myself. Or, as Mark Steyn translates:

To protest the Islamophobia of Geert Wilders, a male teacher from Eindhoven has taken to wearing a Muslim headscarf in public.


Look, I like a neat visual shorthand as much as the next fellow, but this is almost too perfect a symbol of what's happening on the Continent: European men are auditioning for the part of Muslim women.

So... men wearing Islamic women's clothing: is that where the "draagt" part comes in?

Too funny.

David Warren's dream hockey team:

We'd try to represent every possible skin colour and shading, all major non-European language groups, the least probable national origins, some interesting religious affiliations, the widest possible range of body weights and ages, a selection of common physical disabilities, and as many sexual orientations as we were able to identify through diligent research -- all to be included through combinations of faculties, or absence of faculties, to the exclusion only of white heterosexual males.

Maybe they could have "CHRC" emblazoned across their jerseys (since CCCP has already been used).

Scaramouche!: We're Number One!

Further to my post yesterday about the Olympics...

Scaramouche!: We're Number One! Canada wins some other prizes too, like being the country with the most stupid human rights commissions.

As for gold medals,  Paul Tuns points out (by linking to this article in the Edmonton Journal) that everything is relative: Canada won more gold (partly) because there were more gold to win. (88 events at this Olympics, as opposed to as few as 37 in 1976).

Al Gore: obtuse liar, comedian.

A silly op-ed on nytimes.com

We would no longer have to worry that our grandchildren would one day look back on us as a criminal generation that had selfishly and blithely ignored clear warnings that their fate was in our hands.

Um...like future (even more grossly overtaxed) generations will blame Boomers for killing off entire generations by contraception and abortion?

I, for one, genuinely wish that the climate crisis were an illusion.

Lie. He has made millions (if not billions) off the fantasy of global warming and the resulting hysteria.

The heavy snowfalls this month have been used as fodder for ridicule by those who argue that global warming is a myth, yet scientists have long pointed out that warmer global temperatures have been increasing the rate of evaporation from the oceans, putting significantly more moisture into the atmosphere — thus causing heavier downfalls of both rain and snow in particular regions, including the Northeastern United States. Just as it’s important not to miss the forest for the trees, neither should we miss the climate for the snowstorm.

Translation: Watch my swinging hockey stick! You are getting sleeeeepy! Global WARMING causes lots and lots of SNOW! When you awake you will remember nothing...

Thanks to Mark Shea for the link.

Did it enjoy a leisurely cigarette too?

"Canada wakes up after Games climax at ease with itself."

 Whatever.

Sure, the Games (and the last hockey match in particular) were exciting. Sure, I watched it all on TV. Sure, I'm glad all over that Canada won so many gold medals. But I have no illusions about this changing the country "forever." What twaddle.
If Canada can't have lasting national pride (and it doesn't) in having helped the Allies win World War II, then hosting a winter games and garnering a bucketful of medals isn't going to have any long-term impact.