Iraq - Drowning in Good Intentions

A small but telling recent piece in The New Yorker revealed the depth of the American Mistake in Iraq.

We learn that there are over 1,000 America civilians employed at a compound in central Baghdad. Over 500 of those people had never before this assignment had a passport! Just like their President, these bumpkins had never before shown enough interest in the world to visit China, Japan, South Africa, Rio, Dublin, Paris or Perth. But now they have been assigned jobs in Iraq. think about that.

Then, we learn that there is a cafeteria in the compound. The room operates night and day. Fully 99 % of the employees, servers, cooks, cleaners et al are Muslim. Nevertheless, the American run cafeteria in all its cultural sensitivity serves pork.

And you wonder why the campaign is a total mess.

Hank Jones - Jazz Piano

Turn up the volume to appreciate the subtlety and beauty of this classic American standard by a great musician.

The Strike vs. 2010??? The Mayor is Nuts

Nobody wants a City strike.

Nobody wants garbage piling up on hot summer nights.

But for the Nutty Mayor to complain publicly that the potential strike of City workers next week will harm Olympic plans shows how many skills he lacks.

Like reason and sensibility, for example.

The strike issues are about working men and women and their livelihoods. We may or may not agree with them, but perhaps we could respect their real concerns.

To balance the real and immediate concerns of our neighbours and fellow citizens against the possible problems of The Big Party 3 years from now is idiotic.

Here's what you've got to do, Sam.

Along with the shot of whiskey and the anti-depressants that you take every morning, start taking a common sense pill or a MUTE pill.

Up Your Column

Ian Mildew must have fotos of his bosses with barnyard animals. How else to explain his constant presence.

He almost always gets everything wrong, and today he does it again.

He writes a Johnny Be Good tale of rehab amongst The Killers, and his concluding line is "this proves that people can change."

No, Mildew, it possiby indicates that SOME people might change.

BLACK IN A NUTSHELL

The entire Conrad Black story emerges in this little historical nugget:

"He was expelled from 2 schools - once for selling exam papers to fellow students..."

Well, now Canada has some real bragging rights - home of the most arrogant felon on earth.

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

Peggy Lee

wow...

Bye, Bye...

CONRAD BLACK GUILTY!

Conrad Black has been found guilty of enough charges (4) to land him in prison for a very long time.

Read the entire story here.

How Many Wives is 2 Many?

And congratulations to Sun editorial writer Daphne Bramham, who has continued her coverage of the polygamists in Bountiful, BC.

As Bramham writes today, the case has much wider ramifications in terms of the entire scope of religious freedoms vs. existing laws.

Polygamy has been illegal in Canada almost as long as there has been a Canada. let us hope that some appeal to the Charter of Rights & Freedoms does not overturn that.

Importing Domestic Abuse - One of the Many Unintended Consequences of a Policy of Multi-Culturalism

How surprised will we all be when we learn that the husband did it and staged an attack?

About as surprised as we are to learn that he already has a kidnapping conviction and a history of domestic violence.

Perhaps someone needs to explain to people moving here from other cultures that treating your wife like livestock in a no go in Canada.

But, when we strain ourselves to offer driving tests in over 180 languages and dialects - none of which appear on road signs - how soon is that likely to happen?

Go, Lions, Go!

When I was a kid growing up in Winnipeg, I used to listen to Blue Bomber games on a little bedside, brown plastic radio. Later, the CBC began a practice of playing the week's game in real time on black and white TV on Sunday nights around midnight. You could actually see a football game from pay to play in one hour. It was wonderful.

Then, when I was playing basketball at the YMHA, I would occasionally find myself, age 14, playing against Bomber coach (and Minnesota Lakers star) Bud Grant or Bombers quarterback, Kenny Ploen. Amazing!

But in the late sixties, here in Vancouver, I discovered Johnny Unitas, the Baltimore Colts and Kenny "The Snake" Stabler and the Oakland Raiders. My interest in the CFL plummeted as my obsession with NFL football grew exponentially.

I travelled to Seattle once and saw the great John Brodie throw 2 absolutely dead-on TD bombs to Gene Washington right in our corner of the Kingdom!

All of which is a preamble to say how positively impressed I have been with the CFL and the Vancouver Sun in recent years in their efforts to win back my attention. In a league that has been plagued by dollar problems and often a lack of identity, much good has been done to keep the fan base and bring in more.

Congratulations to the league, to the newspaper and to the Lions, in particular.

The Hollies - Bus Stop

One of my favorite groups of the Beatles era...

The Religion of Crow

No finches, juncos, robins, sparrows or stellar jays.

That's the current state of our yard and our neighbourhood of late.

You know why?

B-caws! B-caws!

Crows. Wall to wall crows. Night and day. All crows all the time.

Yesterday I hauled out the binoculars and counted over 20 of these suckers roaming over the tops of 3 evergreens across the way.

They are loud, noisy, annoying and they chase everything else away.

But wait.

They are also all dressed in black, they produce many offspring and they keep to themselves. Why didn't I think of this before?

They are just Hasidic Jews in disguise!

Psychiatrists Are As Crazy as Killers

Nobody is crazier or more socially irresponsible than psychiatrists.

This week a 13 year old Alberta girl was found guilty of stabbing to death two adults and an 8 year old boy.

Quick as a wink, Dr. Dominique Bourget of Ottawa has offered her wisdom:

"It is of the utmost importance that the girl receive a complete psychological assessment.It will be almost impossible to reform the girl if any mental illness goes undiagnosed.

The girl will require years of intensive one-on-one therapy in order to be successfully rehabilitated.

You need to come to terms with what has happened, develop more understanding of empathy."

HAHAHAHA....

Who is the crazy person here?

What is it about violent murder of your family that the doctor doesn't understand?

Who will pay for these years of one-on-one intensive therapy? Why should anyone?

Guest Blogger on Ed Mirvish & others...

Hi David,

This comment isn't really about this item on your blog. I wanted to write you about someone else (coincidentally a jew) that I think deserves recognition. I couldn't find an email link, so I post it here hoping you will read it.

A great Canadian, Ed Mirvish passed away today just short of his 93rd birthday. I had the great pleasure to work for him on a few occasions and to know him and his lovely wife a little bit. I wish we had a citizen statesman like Ed here in Vancouver. Ed built theatres and invested his money in the cultural life of his city. He hired people and paid them good wages and benefits. He was Jewish, but handed out free turkeys to anyone who needed one each Christmas.

The best we can come up with in Vancouver is Jimmy Pattison: Best known for owning a gigantic yacht and Frank Sinatra's old house in Palm Springs. He apparently made his fortune by firing the worst performing (least lucky?) car salesman at the end of each month in each of his many car dealerships and by polluting our province with ugly billboards. Philanthropy doesn't seem to be his strong suit. How do we get an Ed Mirvish in Vancouver?RIP Ed.

Thanks for listening David.

Cheers,John

Sink-Hole on the Inlet

Can you say, "A Billion" boys and girls?

Cause that's what the final tab will be on The Trade & Convention Centre Expansion.

It's instructive that wily old Gordon Campbell threw this public relations disaster onto the lap of Stan Hagen, a career politician with no known accomplishments.

If you ask Stan, he'll tell you that he pretty much single-handedly invented good government. The only problem is that when you bother to look over his track record in various offices over many years, you find...uh...er...nothing, except a marvelous ability to convince the rubes in his neck of that woods that he's a lovely, charming guy and they should vote for him.

You and I will rarely, if ever, set foot in this Folly on the Water, but we will have shelled mightily for it, so dentists from Albuquerque can try our local hookers. Fabulous!

Download Stunner

A guy electrocuting himself by sweating and listening to his iPod in a lightening storm...you really have to write your own jokes here.

But wasn't there just a tiny, mean, vengeful part of your soul that read this item and said, "YES!"

Victor on Hasidic Jews & Barbara Kay

Hi Mensch:

I sent this letter to the N-Post the day the piece ran. Naturally, as it constituted a criticism of a journalist (horrors!) they never ran it.

I'm not Jewish but I was offended by the invisible subscript that seemed to say " If you're in a small town and some bearded types with headgear move in it's upsetting but if you're in a big city and 120,000 hairy, turbaned folk move in, it proves you are multi-cultural".

Sorry. I remember small town folks shooting different people in the early 60's. Small town is not a passport for small-minded. I guess it still is.

I meet more and more people , which explains why I like my dog more everyday.

Le Boulevardier

"Barbara Kay seems to justify community wariness of Hasidic Jews on the grounds that these people with elaborate headgear and full beards constitute " a critical demographic mass of self-segregating people". Wouldn't that also describe many of Canada's Sikh communities? Both the Hasidim and the Sikhs are hard-workers with estimable business skills. True, Hasidic Jews, unlike Sikhs, tend to avoid political involvement, but then they don't demand headgear exemptions under safety laws. As for willingness to integrate, I would think that a red-haired Irish boy hoping to marry either a Sikh or Hasidic girl had better be prepared for a long wait.
Joe Clark referred to Canada as a "Community of Communities". It is really a galaxy of ghettos, a legacy of our insipid multicultural policy. Deal with it."

James Taylor - Sweet Baby James

Here's one of the sweetest voices in contemporary music...

Further Thoughts on AntiSemitism

Walter has left a comment on my post about anti-semitism in the Laurentians outside of Montreal.

He refers to an article by Barbara Kay, published yesterday in the National Post, on this very subject. In the article, Ms. Kay talks about Hasidic Jews not being good "mixers," as if this were the very stuff of civilized behaviour.

Well, first I encourage you to read the article. And when you've done that, consider this.

Ms. Kay is, in my opinion the very worst kind of apologist. She is a conservative, modern Jew who is uncomfortable with women and men who will not shake her hand, women and men and children whose lifestyle is a degree or two different from her own. She distinguishes between what she calls "mainstream" Jews (that is, Jews who don't make trouble by wearing funny clothes and walking a lot) and what she outrageously, egregiously calls "cult" Jews. She somehow doesn't see the mortal ironies in her position of appeasement.

The most telling sentence in her essay is this one:

"...many Quebecois are still anti-Semitic, a few hatefully so."

Huh?

You mean there is an approved, acceptable kind of anti-Semitism that is not hateful?

Here is the shaky ground on which this classic middle-class desperate-to-belong striver stands. Her position is exactly akin to the "discreet" homosexual who loudly separates himself at every opportunity from Gay Pride Parades, drag queens and gay political groups.

There are many kinds of gays, catholics, Jews, bongo players and fire fighters. For one sub-group to discredit another is self-destructive.

A know far too many Barbra Kay's. I don't spend much time with them. When the bullets start flying, you never know if they'll still be in the trench with you.