Things About the Stuff

As usual...


Why judges should be elected:

The Federal Court said today in a judicial review that it was "unreasonable" for the federal government to appoint a third-party manager in Attawapiskat last fall as the Ontario community was dealing with a housing crisis.

Attawapiskat First Nation had applied to the court for a judicial review of the decision by Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan to have a third-party manager oversee the community's finances.

The northern Ontario reserve had been under co-management for 10 years before the third-party manager was appointed in November 2011 during a housing crisis that generated headlines for weeks.

The community of 2,000 declared a state of emergency last October after a severe housing shortage forced more than two dozen families to live in temporary shelters, some without insulation or plumbing.

"This judicial review confirms, if such confirmation were needed, that decisions made in the glare of publicity and amidst politically charged debate do not always lead to a reasonable resolution of the relevant issue," Justice Michael Phelan wrote.

He said there is no evidence to support the accusations from critics that Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Duncan and other cabinet members acted in a reprehensible way, and said the problem in this case lies not "at the feet of the political masters, but in the hands of the bureaucracy."

The judge determined that in the face of an alleged default by Attawapiskat under its funding agreement with the federal government, appointing a third-party manager was an "unreasonable" remedy.

I would say that there are ninety million reasons why the Attawapiskat reservation needs a complete overhaul.


Thanks for stabbing the Attawapiskat destitute in the back, Justice Phelan.



The boycott that wasn't, a pulled article, a douchebag, the subsequent firing of the aforementioned douchebag and grist for the mill of people who just aren't having it.



Many people have many nuanced positions on many things. This attempted boycott of Chick-Fil-A was anything other than nuanced. It was stupid, childish and ultimately self-defeating. As if one chicken restaurant were somehow the pin to prick the fragile bubble that is the West, or that the population at large is completely gullible and malleable.



Dan Cathy's statement:

We are very much supportive of the family -- the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that.

Also:

Recently, there have been some misleading stories about Chick-fil-A in the media and on the Internet.  As a result, I feel strongly about the need to clarify some things.    

In recent weeks, we have been accused of being anti-gay. We have no agenda against anyone.  At the heart and soul of our company, we are a family business that serves and values all people regardless of their beliefs or opinions.  We seek to treat everyone with honor, dignity and respect, and believe in the importance of loving your neighbor as yourself.

We also believe in the need for civility in dialogue with others who may have different beliefs.  While my family and I believe in the Biblical definition of marriage, we love and respect anyone who disagrees.  

Did I miss the hate? Where was it? Was it also apparent in homosexuals et al who don't believe in gay marriage? It certainly seemed that way with Chicago mayor Rahm Emmanuel and Boston mayor Tom Menino:

As an exercise in sheer political muscle, it's impressive. But, if you're a feminist or a gay or any of the other house pets in the Democratic menagerie, you might want to look at Rahm Emanuel's pirouette, and Menino's coziness with Islamic homophobia. These guys are about power, and right now your cause happens to coincide with their political advantage. But political winds shift. Once upon a time, Massachusetts burned witches. Now it grills chicken-sandwich homophobes. One day it'll be something else. Already in Europe, in previously gay-friendly cities like Amsterdam, demographically surging Muslim populations have muted Leftie politicians' commitment to gay rights, feminism and much else. It's easy to cheer on the thugs when they're thuggish in your name. What happens when Emanuel's political needs change?

And what a farce these "values" have turned out to be. You can attempt to squash a man's personal belief or his business with the power of your office and that's fine... until you realise the hungry masses (for freedom or chicken- you decide) just won't buy into it. I suppose it never occurred to people that others have different ideas and should be free to express them or that a quiet boycott would be more dignified and less pushy that some hyperbolic economic jihad. But if leftists are anything, they are pushy. Declaring that each chicken sandwich is a tool of hate is quite the silencing blunt object of choice.



How does it sound now?




File under: we don't need cheap shoes from Vietnam:

A blogger in Vietnam who has been critical of the one-party communist state was prevented by the authorities on Thursday from travelling abroad, a month after he was attacked by suspected government agents.

Catholic blogger Nguyen Huu Vinh said staff at the Noi Bai Airport in Hanoi stopped him from boarding a flight to Singapore when he wanted to accompany his mother, who needed medical treatment in the island state.

The airport authorities said they were acting on police orders.

Oh, yes. Following orders. Where have we heard that before? That and more selective reasoning.



Related: China hasn't changed and don't you forget it:

Hong Kong parents are battling plans to introduce lessons praising China's Communist Party rule, saying the curriculum amounts to brainwashing and an attack on the city's cherished freedoms.

Up to 90 000 people, led by stroller-pushing parents and banner-waving children, took to the streets of the semi-autonomous territory on Sunday to denounce "national education", as the subject is officially called.

The issue has been on the city government's agenda since it was handed over from Britain to China in 1997, but a new teaching booklet lauding the "China model" of development has infuriated educators and parents. ...
Concerned parents and students have pointed out that the proposed curriculum fails to properly address upheavals in 20th-century Chinese history, such as the Tiananmen protests and the violent radicalism of the Cultural Revolution.

The 34-page government-sponsored booklet called "China Model" praises the Chinese Communist Party as "progressive, selfless and united".


China's one-party rule is referred to as a "society-first" and "united" system, and is compared favourably to multi-party democracy as practised in the United States, which is described as inefficient and disruptive.

A section on multi-party politics comes with the headline: "When the parties struggle, there is disaster for the citizens."

The booklet is one small part of the national education curriculum, which was approved last year and will become compulsory for all primary and secondary students from 2016.

Students will attend the classes for one hour a week, but will not be required to sit exams on the subject.

"National education teaches our kids to lie," said Wong Kin, an irate father of three, at a recent public conference where teachers and parents vented their anger at the government's plans.

"There are already courses for Chinese history, Chinese culture and Chinese language, there's no need to teach national education."

I implore you to ignore the elephant in the room:

Smugly thinking they are cloaked in the inviolability of their self-proclaimed victimhood, OISE's poobahs exhale malefic manifestos from their mushroom thrones. Their clouded ideology encourages more and more immigration from third world countries, many of which have inherently racist, violent cultures. If immigrants have white skin and are from Europe, they add to the `crime` of  "occupation" and "colonization" of Canada, but at the University of Toronto's crown jewel of education studies, developing world immigrants they inanely refer to as "racialized" get colonizer exemption status. Because quite a few OISE professors teach that race is the primary determining factor of a collective guilt and accountability, which places them in  philosophical agreement with Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan.

Is that grinding sound the teeth of sheltered white liberals gnashing? How self-loathing- and deluded- do you have to be to write this crap? Political correctness and its ugly pet, political multiculturalism (the kind Trudeau proffered), are the reasons why we cannot discuss with any kind of objectivity or candour race, culture, language and their effects on people as a whole. I get in some way the self-loathing, the attachment to victimhood, the deriding of practical and sound cultures, the favouring of others and other forms of dilettantism that sheltered white liberals and Marxists of all backgrounds indulge in but isn't this just an offshoot of the emo/Goth phases teen-agers go through? Isn't someone going to grow up at some point?




And now, a bunch of giraffes. Enjoy.




(With thanks to one and many)