Pickle

The Blogger rests...Sunday and Monday.

See you back here on Tuesday morning.

SPEAK - ON YOUR OWN DIME

The Canadian Arab Federation gets public money to call public officials, like Immigration Minister Jason Kenny, whores.

They have called Harper and Ignatieff whores and accused Bob Rae of being a racist Zionist, pointing out that Rae's wife is, hold your nose, a Jew.

Here are some of the details taken directly from Margaret Wente's Saturday Globe column:

With a budget of more than $1-million a year, the Canadian Arab Federation depends heavily for its existence on taxpayers' money. It claims this funding is used entirely for programs that help newcomers adjust to Canadian society, and to fight racism and Islamophobia. "Our activity as an advocacy group has nothing to do with our political activity," Mr. Boudjenane says.

But the CAF's website tells another story. The home page urges people to join protests against the "massacre on Gaza." It links to dozens of anti-Israel articles, and gives prominent play to the winners of a recent essay contest on "the ethnic cleansing of Palestine." The website was developed with a grant of $60,000 from the federal Department of Heritage.

The CAF is a prominent sponsor of anti-Israel demonstrations, which feature people waving Hamas and Hezbollah flags, and people calling for the state of Israel to be wiped off the planet. One video shows a woman pointing toward the camera and declaring: "Jewish child, you're going to f------ die. Hamas is coming for you."

For the record, the Muslim Canadian Congress doesn't get any public money. Neither does the Canadian Jewish Congress, the country's largest Jewish advocacy group.

Wente's argument is in the title of the piece:

Say what you want - just don't expect taxpayers to pay

And she is right.

We are a nation that prizes freedom of speech.

But where is it written that taxpayers ought to pay for hateful or incendiary commentary?

Keep in mind that every level of government puts tax dollars into this particular silo, as well as into the cigar boxes of a thousand and one aggrieved and entitled groups across the nation.

Welcome to Canada - Bite the Hand That Feeds You!

TERRITORIAL IMPERATIVES IMPEDE POLICING

Eleven municipal forces and 126 RCMP detachments.

This is the single glaring reason that Pickton avoided even the most cursory attention while he was busy killing women.

This is the single glaring reason that Olson was able to continue killing young girls and boys for so long.

And it is the single glaring reason that criminal subcultures called gangs are able to flourish here in the greatest place on earth (unless you get hit with a stray bullet.)

Yet, the mayors of every little burg and whistle stop in the region firmly and stubbornly resist the idea that Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson, Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu and former Chief Bob Stewart all champion - One Metro Police Force.

The argument from the Village Idiots is that they will lose that homey hoody personal touch that folks in Tsawwassen and Port Moody now currently enjoy. Or so we are told by the officials.

Maybe.

Former Vancouver Police Chief asks in this morning's Globe, "Can you think of any private business that would embrace such a self-evident dysfunctional structure?"

Here, for the record, are the sticks-in-the-mud on this issue: the mayors of Delta (Lois Jackson), Port Moody (Joe Trasolini) ans Surrey (Dianne Watts) to name just a few.

It's good to cover your ass...until it gets shot off while you're hunting for better yogurt.

Pay To Pee

Even Scare Canada hasn't sunk this low.

Yet.

Ryanair, Britain's lo lo lo cost flyer, is now talking publicly about charging passengers a one pound coin to get into and use the on board in flight bathrooms.

Ryanair's irrepressible CEO Michael O'Leary is known for getting lots of free publicity by airing these kinds of ideas, so we can't really be sure if he's serious.

But I have a better idea.

For every man and woman who has dreamed of in air assignations, how about a coin operated boudoir?

And in keeping with the rising sales of hand held video recorders, for an extra coin get the video memento of your moment over France.

"Fly me to the moon,
And let me live beneath the stars..."

The Comforts of B&B - From her "One Voice" Video