2007: A Third Edge of the Sword Year in Review (to music)

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With 2007 closing up, I thought it would be fun to review the year in (roughly) chronological order to the tune of Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire". Here it is in YouTube form -- the second is a karaoke rendition so that you can sing along if you so choose. Enjoy!



2007 at Third Edge of the Sword by Feynman & Coulter's Love Child sung to the tune of "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel Stephen Harper, Black Guys, Consulate, Russian Spies Meigs Field, Doug Rouche, billions for Quebec 9/11, Porno Tube, didn't think that cop was rude Hot girl, acting career, paganism book Nisku Ass, F-bomb, Deus Ex, Barak Obam Anna Dead, New Blogger, Stroumboulopoulos on The Hour, Klingon swords, contests, Alberta plagued by terrorists, Widgets, cimate change, liberal math is deranged This was two thousand seven Where Third Edge of the Sword Won a minor award Here's our two thousand seven In some ways it was shit And we all deserved it Private site, Hillier, 12 steps done sillier Ontario, Day Break, homo sapiens Chinese cash, Anna Smith, Family Day, Olympics NASCAR cheating, Messier's own street 'Xander Keith, Ry Smyth, enviro weenies full of shit Red lights, hockey fags, chicks in space, South Park nags raindropkiss, parenthood, Oiler losses, Hogan suicide, Motion Notion, Harper's 07 Budget This was two thousand seven Though it wasn't more fun Than it was in '01 Here's our two thousand seven In some ways it was shit And we all deserved it David Parker, Showgirls, music spelling, Treasure Pizza Cats, plastic bans, jobs that are really scams Stronach, happy song, Fido ad gone wrong Metric system, Calgary, different sized cities Bert Brown, Virginia Tech, phishing, Facebook Harry Neale, wrong Hill, Doohan we will miss you Michael Phair, Cho Seung, Day Break and Edwin Rory Fitz filler, what the hells a ten-biller? This was two thousand seven Where Third Edge of the Sword Won a minor award Here's our two thousand seven In some ways it was shit And we all deserved it Normal breasts, taxicab, Ratzenburger not dead NDP on gas tax, climate change fan attacks Pamphlet in the trash can, French Presidental yam Sexy toddler, midway, Comrie Cup -- no way Interleague, Paris, Spidey 3 senseless Sudanese blown away, why are they here anyway? This was two thousand seven Where Third Edge of the Sword Won a minor award Here's our two thousand seven In some ways it was shit And we all deserved it Day Break blogged live, Lebanon takes a dive Rolland Garos, Leno, new life, oh no NIMBY, Lighthouse, CompuSmart, drinking changes to start Post-modern Canuckistan, Edmonton ambulance's new fat van Puffin bird, Fringe reviews, sex foes, oil news World Series, homeless brat, Paul, Byfield, mayor crap Referendum call by Jack, my Blue Bombers take a sack Mickey D contest groan, do December on your own! This was two thousand seven In some ways it was shit And we all deserved it This was 2007 And the first eleven months have been reviewed on this blog... This was two thousand seven In some ways it was shit And we all deserved it This was two thousand seven We'll see you back here For the 2008 year Update, December 31 2:58pm: I have updated the song to include links to the very posts referred to. Enjoy.

I'm shaking in my boots

My classic old Lily Tran photo post has over the past year and change gotten quite the exciting comment thread going.

Today it got even more personal:

Anonymous said...

Dr. Richard P. Feynman .....Please please dont let me find you...Lily was the love of my life and evrything u said just made you a target for DEaTH...FYI...My name is Elliott Miao..If i ever see u, ur gonna wish u never put ur mouth in something u knew nothing about...imma make it my goal to track u down...BELIEVE THAT!!!
6:05 PM

Gotta say, I'm not entirely terrified of Mr. Elliott Miao. Not sure exactly why that is...

Scams right in our own backyard

Attention Travelocity.ca customers. That little "Click here for your special award" button at the bottom of your itinerary that connects you to one-time-offer.com?

12 Angry Men's readership cautions you not to press it.

Alberta's first two news stories of 2008

Alberta smokers face new restrictions

Fire destroys landmark Alberta hotel

Probably not related...

A fresh idea in marketing

While I'm no fan of intrusive government laws, why don't we yet have something forcing companies to advertise the real price if they mention the "6 month promotional rate" in the ads.

Telus High Speed Enhanced ads on the radio, I am looking in your direction...

A New Year's tradition...

Run over to ABFreedom's site, and see how much money Alberta has lost so far this year by being part of Canada.

As of right now? $13,939,828,768

Friday December 28th SUNshine Girl

Today I received from a friend the following text message:

Todays sunshine girl likes pooper sex!!

Today's SUNshine girl is Jessica: Miss Toronto Tourism 2007, and probably the only good reason a person should ever visit Toronto.

If this is after January 3rd, you'll see a different girl, so here are some of Jessica's 18 SUNshine gallery pictures:


I don't know where my friend gets his information, but dammit if I can't find any good counter-intelligence.

At the very least its no less reliable than this piece of intelligence released today:

We have intelligence intercepts indicating that al Qaeda leader Baitullah Mehsud is behind her assassination," Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said on Friday.

Mehsud is one of Pakistan's most wanted militant leaders and is based in the South Waziristan region on the Afghan border. Cheema said authorities recorded an intercept on Friday in which Mehsud had congratulated his people for the attack.

But Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party rejected the claim. A spokesman said the government must show solid evidence.

"The government is nervous," he said. "They are trying to cover up their failure" to provide adequate security.

Now, since you're all worried we're going to die, I'll leave you on a happier note:
Miss France keeps title despite racy photos. Which racy photos? Er... this one...

The Assassination of Benazir Bhutto

We're all gonna die...

Dressed in an elegant emerald shalwar kameez and with a white headscarf slipping from her hair, she stood up after the salmon roulade and chicken supreme to lay down her vision of the future. "I believe that we are at this time at a critical fork between democracy and dictatorship, and between moderation and extremism," she said, saying that the stakes could not be higher for her nuclear-armed country and for the world.

"I know that there is a school of thought which claims that extremism can better be confronted by a military-backed regime," she went on. "As such, some see a controlled dictatorship as a stable and reliable ally, rather than a truly elected government that has the support of the people.

"It will not surprise you to know that I disagree with this view quite vigorously. I think it is a strategic miscalculation that can have a dysfunctional impact in the battle against violent fanaticism, bigotry and hate which today pose the most serious threat to Pakistan's internal security."

Also you can read Mark Steyn's account from a half-personal note: in London he lived near where Bhutto was living during part of her exile.

Finally, Reuters reports that our old friends al-Qaeda top the suspect list. It harkens the post I made on this blog mere hours ago where I talked about allying with terrorists. Bush was probably one of the few western leaders who wasn't gushing with Bhutto-fervor...the President was characteristically taking a more pragmatic view, not wishing to dethrone Musharraf nor stifle his possible competition. But the rest of the west's leaders were totally behind the woman whom the terrorists they refuse to valiently fight decided to off. How disgustingly appropriate.

As the violence and bloodshed escalates in Pakistan, it's time to revisit the Gandhi Principle:

One billion people may want you to be alive, but their votes are
defeated by the one person who wants you dead.

The new face (and snicker) of the Chicago Cubs

Surprising very few people, one of Japan's preeminent fielding outfielders has been signed to the legendary Chicago Cubs, your humble correspondents favourite MLB team.

What is surprising to most people is that the Japanese phenom's last name, rather than his first name, will be printed on the back of his jersey.

Ladies and gentlemen, I bring to you:

Kosuke Fukudome

(It could be worse, he could have come over a couple years back and signed with the Expos)

World Juniors

Well, this is my first hockey related post on here since the North of 49 hockey blog started up, but I want to say a quick word about the Juniors that are on in Czechoslovakia right now.

Canada won their first game 3-0 featuring a 44 save shutout by Jonathan Bernier.

Which leads me to comments made by head coach Craig Hartsburg on Christmas Eve, when he announced that "both goalies would play".

Really? Even if, I opined at the time, Bernier goes and posts four consecutive shutouts? (He's now 1/4 of the way there -- and with 44 shots, even a 1.00GAA seems insanely impressive). Does Hartsburg seriously expect us to believe he would consider benching Bernier after letting in, say, 2 goals on 209 shots in 5 games? Unless, unless, Canada had cinched #1 in the round robin and Bernier was to be given a break before the playoffs?

Coverup at the National Post

The Post editorial board wishes you a merry Christmas
Posted: December 25, 2007, 3:10 AM by Marni Soupcoff

Merry Christmas, everyone! We hope you're having a wonderful holiday. Our present to you this Noel is a link to a disco dancing Santa Claus. You can thank us later.

Whoa! The entire editorial board wishes us a merry Christmas? Are you sure that maybe a couple of members of the board just wanted to wish a "happy Christmas"? Or a "seasons greetings?" Didn't Jonathon Kay vote for a "Bah, Humbug?".

Curious they didn't do one of these disections... its like they don't want the truth to come out!

Christmas is the season for mathematics

Continuing what sadly enough was a Boxing Day discussion of gravity, here's a primer on the Einstein Gravitational Field Equations.

This elegant symbolic formulation of Einstein's general theory of relativity cannot be used for actual calculations, but it clearly shows the principle that "matter tells spacetime how to curve, and curved space tells matter how to move"(John Wheeler, Princeton University and the University of Texas at Austin). The left side of the equation contains all the information about how space is curved, and the right side contains all the information about the location and motion of the matter. General relativity is beautiful and simple (to a physicist), but mathematically it's very complicated and subtle.

If you understood all that, then check out the 2-D expansion of the tensor form of the equations. And if that wasn't fun enough, grab yourself a copy of f2c (and gcc) and admire the 3-D representation of the equations in FORTRAN!

Or just check a pictogram if this is getting a little math-y for your tastes.

"You're either with us, or with the terrorists," President Bush once said

And now it seems like there are a lot more countries than you think who, when push comes to shove, are sort of with the terrorists.

Just check out this news:

A senior United Nations official and another from the European Union left Afghanistan on Thursday after the government ordered their expulsion, accusing both of holding talks with the Taliban and for paying cash to the group.

Add onto that this story about Iran contributing to Afghanistan, and some whispered rumours around Ottawa that an international agency has determined that China has been helping Iran equip Taliban fighters with high-tech weapons, and it seems that the list of countries helping terrorists gets pretty long. The definition of "allies" may be a little more fluid and fuzzy than most people appreciate, but I'm pretty sure it can be more solid and delineated than what we have going on now...

"This is cool. Is this how liberals feel all the time? Well, except now"

On Christmas evening I had to sit through the excrutiating experience of watching Global TV's Christmas interview with Stephen Harper (and later, Stephane Dion).

The thing which struck me on a whole, which inspires the mangled quote used as a title for this post, is how at the end of the half-hour (20 mins Stephen, 10 mins Stephane) it was the Conservative leader who got the softball questions. From "why are you such a private man" to "what are your Christmas memories", Harper kind of got an easy ride. When he did get tough questions, such as on Afghanistan and Mulroney-Schreiber, Kevin Neumann let him give full answers without picking on weak parts of the argument. Neumann even let Harper get away with the cringe-worthy response Harper gave to the question Neumann has asked every Prime Minister this century: "What part of being Prime Minister has given you the biggest crisis of faith?" Harper started out by professing that he was a Christian (cue cringe from Feynman and Coulter's Love child), and then completely ignored Neumann's question and reformulated it half decently into a talk about how the biggest crisis isn't of faith but of degree, of the gravity of the policy decisions that must be made. While it was a good answer and very well done, Neumann either didn't notice or ignored Harper's re-organizing the question. All in all, Harper gave rather good answers, was quite bold and up-front that he had no intention of letting the Canadian people see "who he really is as a person" beyond hockey/coffee lover and/or family man, instead preferring to decide Canadians knew all they needed to know about his personal life and only would learn more about who Prime Minister Stephen Harper is. Except for the cringe-worthy bit about religion, I thought Harper did a good job. Of course, with hardball questions like that, I could have done a good job.

The soft-ballness of the questioning didn't occur to me during Harper's interview, however. It was in the 10 minute interview with Dion that it really hit home, because here Kevin Neumann gave no quarter. Harpers first questions were about Christmas traditions and fond winter memories. Dion's first question was:

Are you ever going to become fluent in English?

Even I, an on-record Dion-hater, thought that was a little harsh to start off with. [he still relished it of course, don't make no mistakes here.. -ed] From there Dion was asked (briefly) about Mulroney-Schreiber, and then was hammered on the subject of Afghanistan. Dion at one point tried to protest how John Manley's panel wasn't given the option of cutting and running, and Neumann didn't back down on the subject, and kept asking Dion what he would do if Manley's task force came back with a recommendation to stay the course in the south asian nation. After Dion came out of that portion looking like he wishes he was personally in Afghanistan, Neumann ignored Dion's pet issue (the environment) and asked the same question of Harper: why Canadians didn't know yet who he was. While Harper had a good answer to that (he wants Canadians to know about his views on governing the country, not which member of The Guess Who was his favourite -- my money's on Cummings), Dion did not, angrily stating that the only exposure Canadians had to him was the Conservative attack ads. (Apparently Dion forgot about he and his wife's expose's in MacLeans and Reader's Digest in the past year). There is probably plenty of blame to go around for Dion's personality (such as it is) not being exposed to the country. Harper's cabinet's attack ads are pretty far down that list I'd wager. I mean, the Liberals do have a director of communications, don't they? Her name is Liz Whiting, and while it may be uncouth to call her out on national television, it would ultimately be a better strategy than to remind us about the highly effective Conservative attack ads. I mean, at least we can understand if you say that Whiting's suggestions were to go the current way and you agreed with them at the time but in hindsight realize that you should have looked to other options you're taking some extremely indirect responsibility. By blaming Harper, Dion simply looks like the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada is on Parliament Hill as a glorified spectator, which isn't the bold leadership image you really want to portray. As Harper said in his interview:

I guess if I had to choose between being portrayed as a strong leader or being portrayed as a weak leader, I'd pick the strong leader.

(Bonus points for identifying the above quote, incidentally)

Merry Christ's Mass

This may be my last post until after the 26th, so I thought I'd throw in some Christmas tidbits to enjoy.

Cletus T. Judd's "Christmas" music video:


FAN960's 12 Days of Christmas from 2006. (their 2005 one was better)

The atrocious Star Wars Holiday Special (mercifully in only 5 minutes):


Mr. Bean's Christmas:


This is what I want for Christmas:


Do they know its Christmas? (East) Indians celebrating a holiday the British brought to them in good faith.


Taking Back Sunday also take on the 12 Days of Christmas:

(not sure why it keeps going for 2 extra minutes, but just skip that bit)

More Christmas carols from Larry the Cable Guy:


Gospel singers reveal the Real Meaning of Christmas:


Finally, if you want the real meaning of Christmas.

Like, the deep significance.

Then watch this video. But it will make you cry. I'm warning you:


MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE.

Something you never thought you'd see

Ezra Levant chickening out.

CALGARY -- A protest planned for Friday afternoon in Calgary to condemn alleged violent and racist postings has been cancelled after an apology from the Western Standard magazine.

Two human rights complaints against the online magazine also were dropped after the Western Standard's owner apologized, said the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada.

"In the spirit of Eid al-Adha and Christmas, Imam Syed Soharwardy has decided to withdraw his complaint from the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission and the Canadian Human Rights Commission in Ottawa," the group stated in a press release.

Soharwardy said he had invited Matthew Johnston, owner of the Western Standard, to visit Al Madinah Calgary Islamic Centre and talk to the Muslim community on any Friday.

The comments appeared on the Shotgun Blog of the Western Standard website.

The entry, dated Dec. 5 and written by a user calling himself 'Templar,' said, "there is no such thing as innocent Muslims."

Templar went on to write, "They must all be killed. All of them."

"This is absolutely pure hate-mongering," said Soharwardy earlier this week. "It's an abuse of freedom of speech. It's against Canadian (hate) laws."

The original Dec. 2 posting that sparked the user comments was written by former Western Standard publisher Ezra Levant. He was discussing complaints by the Canadian Islamic Congress against Maclean's magazine.

It was the anonymous response to Levant's posting that angered Muslim leaders.

Levant, who no longer owns the website or the Western Standard name, said he doesn't personally agree with the comments, but argued they should be protected as free speech.

The Western Standard website initially said the comments were protected by the principle of freedom of speech, but added changes were in the works for the blog.

While I'm sure Johnson and Levant's pocketbooks and still-attached skulls are appreciating what happened, I'm certainly not. Let them have their protest. Have some of Ezra's friends there with cameras, getting close up photos of every single one of them. Post them on the blog the next day. Make it abundantly clear that they aren't the only ones who know how to do a half-decent intimidation.

Learn from the Jedi Master, for Pete's sake!

Sorry I missed my own party

Do you know what's sad? I completely forgot that December 11th marked the second anniversary of Third Edge of the Sword.

Remember last year when I performed a lot of mathematical evaluations? Yeah, well, not happening this year. Sorry.

2 options regarding new readers

Third Edge of the Sword: Put an update to the post welcoming new eyeballs.

Chickenshit asshole pretending to be a lawyer: Shut off comments, complain about free speech, and brag about living in a police state.

In other words, in order to transgress s. 319(1), one need not have intentionally promoted hatred. Neither must the communicating statements have been intended for a public audience. All that is required is that the accused actually succeeded in inciting hatred which was “likely to lead to a breach of the peace.”

So I glanced at the 'recent comments' last night

Um...how the hell did I suddenly get 13 comments on a relatively obscure post I did a few days ago regarding the CBC complaining that The Evil Stephen Harper^TM held a press conference in a warehouse (that's not a typo... they are upset over a warehouse, not a whorehouse), mainly because it was a blizzard in Ottawa at the time (or as we call it in Edmonton, a "dusting") and the reporters had difficulty looking up a street address. I mused that it had something to do with lazy journalists, mentally chuckled that even The Simpsons and South Park are doing Google Maps/Mapquest jokes now and almost typed that kind of stuff out, but moved onto vital things like making fun of Britney Spears' sister and the like.

And then suddenly it set a new record over here at Third Edge of the Sword, Inc. (apologies to Garner Andrews), and for the longest time I was left confused as to why.

Here's why. At this point, there are 15 comments to my post. To find 15 comments on previous posts, you have to go all the way back to October 28th and sum up the comments. That's moderately insane.

Just wait 'til I get discovered on Slashdot..

Last normal service weekday before Christmas

I know, it doesn't seem like a good milestone, but the weekend shopping will be insane, and Monday the 24th is a holiday for many people (and comes with reduced shopping hours), so today's the day to shop if you want to avoid the huge crowds.

(Alert: moderate crowds have already been reported by my spies at West Edmonton Mall: 87th Avenue from the Henday to 149th is damned close to a parking lot, which is probably for the best as the WEM parking lot's upper decks are already full with the SUVs and F-350s that don't fit into the Mezzanine.)

So with the Christmas shopping weekend upon us, its time to take some holiday inspiration. Take it away, Clark Griswold:

Its times like this make me wish I lived in Quebec

Wow, never thought you'd hear me say that, would you? But what else can you infer after reading these two stories:

Quebec will not harrass drivers for having (perfectly legal) 0.05% Blood-Alcohol Concentration (BAC) as most other provinces do. MAID, as you might expect, is livid. Tell them to go have a freaking drink already.

If that wasn't enough, Quebec also brought in tougher regulations on tasers, requiring police to actually use them to protect somebody's life, not just to make it a little more convenient to take down the Polish guy at the airport. Contrast that to that weakling Stelmach's decision to let corrupt forces like EPS just abuse tasers whenever they felt like it.

So is there nothing that will cure my envy of Quebec? Oh, wait... here it is.

At least we're not the only country with screwed up age-of-consent laws

Today's news is that Britney Spear's little sister is pregnant, and her 19 year old boyfriend is therefore in violation of Louisiana state law.

f Casey is indeed the dad-to-be, and the blessed event took place in Jamie Lynn's home state of Louisiana, then the act could be classified as a "Felony carnal knowledge of a juvenile," defined as "sexual intercourse with consent between someone age 19 or older and someone between age 12 and 17."

If Casey were tried and found guilty, he could face a maximum possible term of 10 years imprisonment, possibly with hard labor.

According to Louisiana Revised Statutes 14-80 and 14-42, an individual can legally consent to sexual intercourse when he/she is 17 years of age. And in cases (such as Spears') where the victim is 15 or 16, the defendant (Aldridge) must be no more than two years older for the sexual intercourse to be legal.

So if their baby was conceived in Louisiana, 19-year-old Casey could be confronting some not-so-sweet-16 charges.

The law, like everything else, is different in California. But Casey could still be in trouble if the couple did the deed in the Golden State, where Spears resides while filming her Nickelodeon show "Zoey 101."

"It states clearly in the Californian Penal Code that any person who engages in an act of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor (under 18) who is not more than three years older or three years younger than the perpetrator, is guilty of a misdemeanor and faces up to one year in a county jail," said criminal defense attorney Jim Hammer.

“But if Aldridge is actually more than three years older, he could be up for a felony, which carries a maximum three years in prison.”

Now I have stated before that the American age-of-consent laws, like their drinking laws, need to be adjusted. When I was in the U.S. years ago I met some people from Tennessee who's friend was serving a jail term for "statutory rape" -- not sure from which state, as Tennessee doesn't seem to have that caveat -- he was dating a girl two years younger than himself at age 17, but he turned 18 before she turned 16. Her parents had him charged and convicted of statutory rape. These men lived in fear of "jailbait" -- 16/17 year old girls who claimed to be 18/19 and turned out not to be. One of the reasons they all seemed to like this mythical "Alberta" (besides the concept of totally nude strippers) was the 18 year old drinking age and the discovery that sex with a 16 year old who told you she was 18 at the bar wasn't illegal when you were 2 days after your 19th birthday.

This isn't to say that Canada's age of consent laws are better per se: sure a 19 year old can screw a 16 year old with no consequences, but his 49 year old father can screw the girls 14 year old sister and also suffer no consequences. It seems silly to be forced to choose between one or the other scenario in this case. Its also awfully weird that several Canadian jurisdictions (including, if that idiot Stelmach gets his way, Alberta) seem to have no problem having a subset of "totally legal adults" who are adults in every single way except the legal ability to drink, but can't possibly imagine a scenario where an 18 year old and a 58 year old with 15 year old girlfriends are treated differently.


Jamie-Lynn Spears may soon be barefoot and pregnant while her
boyfriend languishes away in a jail cell.

The sorry state of investigative journalism in Canada

Where, you may wonder, am I going with this? The Mulroney story? The infamous lottery case where bloggers scooped the day? 75% of the posts on DustMyBroom or SmallDeadAnimals? Everything Steve Janke has ever written?

Well, no. I'm referring to a new complaint against the Harper government by...the media.^† Here it is:

Never mind the huge snow storm that socked in Ottawa and most of central Canada over the weekend, that was not going to stop the prime minister from making a holiday announcement at a place of his choosing. Come Monday morning, he was already on the road.

This early press conference would take place in an old Salvation Army warehouse in the west end of Ottawa, in an industrial mall that most reporters had never been anywhere near, let alone with a PM.

Taxis couldn't find it, reporters were stuck in snow in those same taxis and satellite trucks were found kilometres away looking for the country's prime minister. Where in the world is ...?

And this may not explain why investigative journalism in Canada is nowhere near that of Britain or the U.S., but it certainly highlights it. Reporters unable to track down... a street address? Are news journalists so rusty in their skills that they can't report to a press conference in a place they've never been anywhere "near"? That's pathetic.

^† Speaking of which, Bay Street is the infamous nickname for Canadian Business. Fleet Street is the nickname for the British press. Does the Canadian media really have nothing to be called? We can't even call them the fifth estate, since that lame CBC knockoff of W-5 already took the name. Can somebody come up with a quick nickname to refer to the MSM in Canada? (See? The Americans already seized "MSM" on us!)

Update, December 22nd 2007 9:32am: Welcome Small Dead Animal readers. The 0.05% of the blogging public who didn't find this post on Kate's site might want to swing over to enjoy additional comments on there. (Brief aside, I notice the complete lack of opposing liberal/Liberal comments both here and at SDA. Is this a permanent thing? I haven't checked her site as often as I used to, but I seemed to recall at least a 75/25 right/left mix that seems to have dried up. Are they all fighting for the Ron Paul cause or something?

Deleted with good reason

As if the last half of the Simpson's Movie didn't drag on enough already, imagine if they had left in these deleted scenes:



And what's with the weird animation of Russ Cargill?

Another Red Light Lounge shooting update

Six months into the hunt for a suspect in one of Edmonton's highest-profile gang slayings, cops have finally found their man - but he's not talking.

Someone else got to him first, beat him to death, stripped him naked and set his corpse on fire before dumping it on the northern fringes of the city, where it was found Dec. 2.

This was a suspect in the Urban Stylez clothing store murder, who was probably killed as a retaliation for the Red Light Lounge shootings. The coincidences just keep on a'piling up, don't they?

Freedom: so much easier to take it a second time

CTV reports that jurisdictions are copying Nova Scotia's "no smoking with kids in the car" laws. As BC, New Brunswick, and the Yukon consider passing this stupid law, the anti-smoking Nazis have their opinions on your fundamental human rights summarized thusly:

While some residents in Nova Scotia have complained that banning smoking in cars with kids violates personal freedom, the Cancer Society says most people don't mind laws curbing the practice.

Wheat Kings and pretty things

With the recent news that Saskatchewan has decided to keep its current logo (a sheaf of wheat), I thought Third Edge of the Sword should list the other choices that Saskatchewan was contemplating. First, lets take a read from the article:

Deputy Premier Ken Krawetz said in a press release Monday that the newly elected government had stepped away from its plans to replace the 30-year-old logo "at this time."

"This idea generated a lot of feedback and discussion throughout the province," Krawetz said in the release. "Some people like the idea. Some, however, do not."

The plan to find a new logo to iconize the booming prairie province was announced by the newly-elected Saskatchewan Party last week.

Krawetz previously said the wheat sheaf was outdated. He thought a new symbol should be found to represent the province's growth from merely an agricultural producer.

But a mission to save the sheaf hit radio talk shows and the Internet. Online polls found overwhelming opposition to the change and more than 300 residents opposing the change joined a Facebook group over the weekend.

Top Ten Rejected Saskatchewan Logos to Replace Wheat
10. Barley
9. Flax
8. Oats
7. Canola
6. Triticale
5. Rye
4. Sorghum
3. Maize
2. Millets
1. Three sheafs of wheat

Always Low Prices. Just no clue what they actually are

I went to one of Edmonton's 73 Wal-Marts tonight to do some cheap-assed Christmas shopping... "$12.99 for an electric griddle? sounds awesome!". One of the places I scoped out was the electronics department, which is now home to the cheap video game bin -- I distinctly remember it being outside the electronics department a few months back. Anyways, the problem is that some of the games didn't have any price stickers on them. Worse, there was an NHL 07 for Xbox that was $18.99 as part of a "2 game value pack". The second game? No clue, as it wasn't packaged with the original. So I went to find one of the price check dealies.

The electronics section doesn't have one.

So I had to grab a staff member to test a few games, but then he disappeared off -- and the 2-game value pack didn't even say which game I got. With no clue what I could buy for what price, I just walked out of the electronics section and back to the electric griddles and $1.99 bottles of shampoo.

"And the women are big and the men are dumb and the children are loopy 'cuz they live in a slum"

The Toronto Blue Jays agreed to a one year deal with David Eckstein.

All I can say is....HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!!!

This is wonderful news!

David Eckstein playing third base would be amazing. I would love to see that. If Jacoby Ellsbury hit a ball down the line to David Eckstein and Eck had to backhand it and throw from foul territory, by the time the ball landed in the first baseman's glove Ellsbury would be sitting on the bench after his inside-the-park little-league HR and Kevin Youkilis would be at the plate with a count of 2-0.

Beyond BALCO

Today the infamous Mitchell Report was released by Major League Baseball. It is downloadable here in .pdf format. A couple days ago ESPN.com vowed it would be huge.

It's huge.

Roger Clemens? Eric Gagne? Michael Tejada? Andy Pettite? This is not a couple of scrubs here!

On page 143 of the .pdf file this anecdote is related:

On the evening of October 4, 2001, Canadian Border Service officers working at Toronto’s international airport discovered steroids, syringes, and clenbuterol in an unmarked duffel bag during an airport search of luggage that had been unloaded from the Cleveland Indians flight from Kansas City. Ted Walsh, the Indians equipment and clubhouse manager who was present during the search, recognized the bag as one that had been sent down to be included with the luggage by Cleveland outfielder Juan Gonzalez when the Indians left Kansas City. On prior trips, Gonzalez had included bags for members of his entourage with his own bags, and Walsh had the impression that this was the case with some of the bags he sent down to be packed for the Toronto flight. The customs officials requested Walsh to bring all of the luggage except the bag in question to the team hotel as normal, which he did. The Indians resident security agent, Jim Davidson, who was traveling with the team because of heightened security after the attacks of September 11, 2001, met with local law enforcement officers in the hotel lobby. Mark Haynes, the Canadian Border Service officer in charge of the investigation, told Davidson that syringes and anabolic steroids had been found in the bag and that officers were going to replace the bag with the Indians luggage to see who claimed it. Haynes also opened the bag and showed Davidson the hypodermic needles, ampules, and other paraphernalia.
Thereafter, Davidson, Haynes, and other officials watched the luggage as Joshue Perez, a member of Juan Gonzalez’s entourage, claimed the duffel bag. With Davidson present, Haynes and other officers took Perez to an anteroom, where he told them that the bag belonged to Angel (“Nao”) Presinal, Gonzalez’s personal trainer, who would be arriving in Toronto on a later flight. As soon as he arrived at the hotel, Presinal was detained by law enforcement officers. In an interview at the hotel, Presinal denied that the bag belonged to him and asserted that it belonged to, and had been packed by, Gonzalez. Haynes and Toronto police officers then went to Gonzalez’s room to question him about the bag. Although he had been present for the interview of Presinal, Davidson was not invited to attend the interview of Gonzalez. After that interview, Haynes reported that Gonzalez had denied any knowledge about the bag’s contents and claimed that he had sent it down to be included with the team’s luggage at Presinal’s request. According to Davidson’s account of the incident, during further questioning Presinal admitted that he had packed the steroids but claimed that he carried them for Gonzalez, whom he helped to administer them. Davidson reported that Presinal also claimed to have assisted several other high-profile major league players in taking steroids. In our interview of him in 2007, Presinal denied that he made any such statements. He asserted that he has no knowledge of the involvement of any player in Major League Baseball with anabolic steroids or other performance enhancing substances.
The next day, Davidson and Toronto’s resident security agent Wayne Cotgreave
had a conference call with Kevin Hallinan of the Commissioner’s Office’s security department and members of his staff. Hallinan said that the matter would be handled from the Commissioner’s Office in New York. Although Hallinan told Davidson that his office would investigate the matter, there is no evidence that such an investigation ever was conducted beyond a search for Presinal’s Cleveland address. None of the eyewitnesses whom we interviewed during the course of our investigation was contacted by anyone about the incident until a news report about it appeared in July 2006. Davidson was never asked to perform any follow-up work with respect to the matter.

Update, 7:08pm: Toronto itself has a couple players named in the report. Troy Glaus, who would have been a Diamondback at the time, is one of them (and no big surprise). Also named is Toronto pitcher and Sportsnet commentator Gregg Zaun. Er, Gregg Zaun?

Kurt Radmonski, the former Mets clubhouse attendant who provided information as part of his plea agreement in a federal steroids case, told Mitchell he sold Zaun Deca-Durabolin and Winstrol back in 2001 and provided a $500 cheque from the player.

The report also says that former Montreal Expos catcher Luis Perez told the commissioner's office that he personally provided steroids to Zaun and seven other major-leaguers.

Gregg Zaun this past season had a .242 batting average, a .411 slugging percentage, and a 98 OPS+. He hit 10 home runs and 24 doubles in 331 at-bats. In 2001 he had a .536 SLG with Kansas City, his highest ever -- his BA was .320 with 6 homers that year in just 125 at-bats. Still, Gregg Zaun? How bad would he be without steroids?

(The Globe and Mail has a list of named players in the report here.)

And EnCana makes two...

Oil giant EnCana is boosting exploratory spending in 2008.

They are also cutting back in Alberta, precisely as they vowed to do when the Stelmach royalty scheme changes were announced. Liberal politicians and bloggers and news anchors (Gord Steinke, for example) kept referring to them as "threats". Even on 630 CHED this morning the news was announced as "EnCana is making good on their threat".

Can we please stop calling this a threat? The oil companies at no point lied to us or deceived us. Can the Stelmach government say the same?

Hey kids, its mega-sized news roundup time yet again

• One of the coaches of the minor league Ontario hockey team involved in the infamous bench clearing brawl incident has been suspended for 3 years. The other coach has yet to be disciplined.
  
  Look, one of the things about this story to bear in mind is that the parents fought: they should be disciplined by either the law or minor hockey. The coaches fought and encouraged the kids to fight: they should be disciplined by either the law or minor hockey. But meanwhile, a huge incident has been made out of the fight itself (it would have still been a story, though a smaller one, had the brawl been restricted to the tots playing). The thing is, that so many people seem not to pay attention to, is that the kids are eight. Eight year old kids fight. I got into fights when I was eight, and so did 99% of my readers. [There is no integer that can be divided by "7" to produce 0.99 -ed] Kids getting into a fight isn't a big deal. Lay off on it already.
  
  
• "Lunch box monitors" will soon be an Ontario reality if this Human Rights challenge is successful. Yes, that's right, by not inspecting 100% of lunches for peanut or egg traces, the education system was depriving people of their fundamental rights to be overly sensitive hypochondriacs.
  
  
• Anybody else miss Maxime Bernier? With him out of the Industry portfolio, Jim Prentice is heating up support for strict anti-copyright laws in Canada. Er, does that mean that we get to drop the surcharge on tapes and DVD-RWs?
  
  
• This is what Austrailians get for dropping conservative John Howard. "Reverse Racism" rulings that will 99% likely go unchallenged.
  
  
• Who cares that he's in a wheelchair? Disability, according to thousands of Sikh's who blockaded the Vancouver Airport, should get a guy off the hook for entering the country on a forged passport.
  
  
• New Saskatchewan Premier is taking a page from Ralph Klein's book as he prepares to follow up on his campaign promises. Also, like Klein, it seems the less conservative the promise, the more likely its going to go through...
  
  
• There is starting to be a heated debate about whether or not the Queen of Canada will celebrate the 400th anniversary of the founding of a French colony. Which the frogs lost due to their weak skills in battle. And are still a little touchy about. Read the comments for the good bits, particularly this bit of insight:

  Mike from Canada
  Elizabeth II is the Queen of Canada at the moment...all of Canada, and that includes Quebec. She should be invited. After all, on the very Coat of Arms for Quebec, the Heraldic Lion, representing the British Monarch, still stands proudly. Besides, if there is a perceived threat to Her Majesty, she has many advisors and security staff who will mitigate and advise on that matter. Invite her, and let her decide if she'd like to come.

  
  
• Karlheinz Schreiber is now claiming foreign interests are responsible for the Joe Clark defeat in 1983. I suppose next he'll tell us who was on the grassy knoll. Does anybody seriously believe what he says anymore? He just wants to tell enough juicy stories so that some pro-Clark MPs (if, indeed, any ever existed) push to permanently block his extradition.
  
  
• The culture wars are heating up, and for once the French don't look like they are going to lose. (For the record, I still think they will). The medical casualties of Quebec's culture clash

  MONTREAL — In the spring of 2005, Bashkim Omeri's wife had a miscarriage in a Montreal hospital. He was told that her blood type was A-positive and that she needed "immunoprophylactic treatment."
  
  According to hospital officials, Albanian-born Mr. Omeri misunderstood them and thought his wife was HIV-positive. A week later the 36-year-old immigrant died after he threw himself before a truck.
  
  His was one of four cases Quebec coroner Jacques Ramsay made public yesterday to underline that accommodating immigrants with different cultures and languages is not trivial, but sometimes a matter of life and death.
  
  Dr. Ramsay plans to present the four cases to the provincial inquiry headed by academics Gérard Bouchard and Charles Taylor, which is holding hearings into the accommodation of minorities.

  The most frightening bit, though, comes from the bottom of the article, where the PQ (or is it the Liberals? Does it even matter anymore which of these two parties wins in Quebec?) has come up with a bold idea:

  More dramatic ideas will be heard this morning with the testimony of Parti Québécois adviser Jean-François Lisée, who is behind the party's idea of making proficiency in French mandatory for newcomers who want to vote or run for office.

  
  
• Rogers is now embroilled in an online controversy when it became known that, like Shaw, it is taking giant leaps to end "net neutrality"
  
  
• Cult, anyone? FaceCrack is now being used by 1 in 4 Canadians.
  
  
• Human evolution is apparently speeding up.

  In the past 5,000 years, genetic change has occurred at a rate roughly 100 times higher than any other period, say scientists in the US.

  How do you explain welders then?
  
  
• Our solar system is getting squashed. Can we blame Micheal Moore?
  
  
• Yesterday I put up a post linking Conrad Black and Micheal Vick. Today, the Chicago Tribune follows my lead.
  
  
• Now that there's a small shortage of radio isotopes, the government is rushing in to force the plant to reopen. Is this really a good idea? You'd have to ask some sort of scientist who is also politically aware. Good luck finding one of those!
  
  
• A group of Iranian exiles says President Maher Arar Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is still making nuclear weapons. To which the only proper response is... well, duh! Ahmad-Arar-ejad responds to the allegations:

  "This group cannot be the basis for correct information," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a news conference in Tehran.

  Er, yeah, we'll believe you on that one right away, President Wacko!

Resurrected Houses of the Holy

Led Zeppelin reunited last night in London, England. I wasn't there.

Supermodel Naomi Campbell was. And she got mugged in her luxury suite. Good.

Anybody who wants to enjoy Led fucking Zeppelin from a "luxury box" deserves any negative fate they receive.

She was the only celebrity known to have had a problem at a concert that was filled with A-list names. Mick Jagger, for example, attended the show with girlfriend, L'Wren Scott, while his children, Georgia and James, came with their mother, Jerry Hall.

The two groups did not run into each other. Hall and kids were satisfied to sit in very good seats at the side of the stage near Bob Geldof, while Jagger was seated in resort mogul Sol Kerzner’s private box with Mica Ertegun and James Taylor.

Elsewhere in the O2 Arena, lots of other celebrities watched Zeppelin and a stellar roster of musicians put together by producer Harvey Goldsmith pay tribute to the memory of Ahmet Ertegun. They ran the gamut from Rosanna Arquette to guitarist extraordinaire Jeff Beck.

Arquette’s friend Paul McCartney was expected but not seen, although his security man arrived and lingered near Arquette in the VIP café before the show.

Also seen in the café were the entire Presley family — Priscilla, Lisa Marie, Riley and son Ben. The four appeared to have cornered the London market on mascara, and Priscilla now looks like Morticia Adams. Why? Who knows?

Juliette Lewis also was spotted in the O2, as was Nile Rodgers, New York radio personality Carol Miller, Will Arnett of "Saturday Night Live," legendary '60s pop icon Lulu with rock jewelry designer Loree Rodkin, the Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl and, ultimately, Foreigner’s Mick Jones, who played one song — "I Want to Know What Love Is" — with a full band and girls’ choir as a tribute to Ertegun.

Any wonder why there was such a shortage of tickets? Every A-list moron on the planet decided to muscle their way into the show. Jerry Hall bringing her kids to the concert? It's not Barney and Friends. It's not even Hannah Montana. It's Led Zeppelin. Leave the tykes at home so a real fan could attend.

FOX News didn't enjoy the show:

There was no reason to be. If you were a Led Zeppelin fan when they last performed together 30 years ago, nothing has changed. But to paraphrase the song they chose for a final encore, it’s been a long, lonely time since they rock and rolled. After blowing on stage like a thunderstorm with a trio of hits — "Good Times Bad Times," "Ramble On" and "Black Dog" — the group stumbled.

A strange song selection combined with iffy audio dynamics didn’t help. "In My Time of Dying" and "Your Life" were a little obscure and too long for a crowd packed frighteningly like sardines onto the floor of an arena. To use the vernacular, it was a buzz kill.

The audience — which had gone wild singing the "ah-hah" refrain in Black Dog — drifted. Plant finally really spoke to the audience at that point: "Thank you for the thousands and thousands of emotions we’ve been going through for Ahmet." He added: "And to bring Jason in."

The reference was to Jason Bonham, who joined Plant, Page and John Paul Jones in place of his late father, John, on drums. Bonham the younger is a muscular, hard-hitting and enthusiastic drummer who gave the group a renewed zest for life.

His father would have been proud to see his bald son (funny since the remaining Zeps have heads of hair only Sweeney Todd could love) reinvigorate some of the hoariest music rock 'n' roll has ever seen.

Some things did not work so well. "Stairway to Heaven," the group’s famous seven-minute-plus reverie and radio staple, should have been the finale. Instead, it sort of popped up in the middle of the set and had a pedestrian quality. The sound quality was distorted, and the grander moments of this soap opera were lost. It was a disappointment.

On the other hand, "Kashmir," which has Middle Eastern tones and a shuddering drum line, was remarkable. When Plant twice hit beautiful high shimmering notes, the video operator was wise to show Page smiling from ear to ear. It was as if his partner had just made Olympic history.

"There are people from 50 different countries here," Plant announced before the song began, "and this is one of them."

Maybe because it was a one-off show and the group was nervous, there was little humor. The connection to the audience was more corporate than personal, a stark contrast to the later soul show when Moore, King and Sledge showed where Ertegun’s real heart belonged.

Yet meanwhile I fret, because I only want to know one thing. What was the new song that they played? What was it called? What does it sound like?

No? Not bringing it up? FINE THEN.

MADD should change its name to BOCB: "Bunch of Crazy Bitches"

MADD Canada is going off the deep end yet again: this time using the results of a survey to propose massive impositions on our fredoms:

The poll, commissioned by Transport Canada and Mothers Against Drunk Driving, found that there was virtual unanimity among those surveyed that impaired driving is the number one road safety concern, far ahead of running red lights, road rage and speeding.

The public opinion poll, to be released today, also found broad acceptance of get-tough measures. For example:

66 per cent think police should be able to conduct random breath tests;

83 per cent believe the vehicles of convicted impaired drivers should be fitted with ignition interlocks, devices that ensure a vehicle cannot be started without a breath test;

56 per cent of those polled said that all new cars should be equipped with ignition interlock devices;

89 per cent of respondents say repeat impaired drivers should have their vehicles confiscated;

89 per cent say the acceptable blood-alcohol level for underage drinkers should be zero.

Over half of Canadians are willing to have breathalyzers placed in their own vehicles? Over half??

The results of focus groups conducted across Canada found similarly hard-line views, including calls to lower the Criminal Code limit for blood-alcohol concentration to 0.05 (50 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood) from the current level of 0.08.

Why? What is really so wrong about 4 Bloody Marys over two hours? Is it any worse than any other number of far more common driving dangers, such as being tired or distracted by kids?

Similarly, Mr. Murie noted that the technology exists to equip all cars with ignition interlock devices at a minimal cost, and that the poll showed strong support for such an approach. He said that, like seat belts and infant car seats, the devices will likely become standard in the years to come.

The MADD CEO said that the oft-cited concern that cracking down on impaired driving will violate civil liberties is unfounded.

1) How funny is it that an organization called "Mothers Against Drunk Driving" has a male CEO?
2) Exactly how is it unfounded there buddy boy? Random checks? Devices in our cars to check our alcohol content? Care to explain this one? Or do you want to just stand by your story with your fingers in your ears. [again, why not call the organization "Mothers against Impaired Driving?" Its acronym would be far more accurate. -ed]

Bonus "alcohol, elixir of life" story: BC plans to tax alcohol based on its liquor content:

Almost half of a group of male University of Victoria students who took a taste test of their favourite frothy friend couldn't tell the difference between low- and regular-strength beer, a study released yesterday shows.

The findings by the UVic-based Centre for Addictions Research B.C. will be used by researchers and health experts next week to appeal to the B.C. government to tie liquor prices to alcohol content.

The idea behind the sin-tax policy is that if low-alcohol beverages were cheaper and high-alcohol drinks more expensive -- thus resulting in a neutral impact on provincial coffers -- consumer tastes would change toward less potent beverages.

How often do we have to say this to get the message across: we do not drink beer because we like the taste of decaying barley in our mouths. We drink beer because it gets us drunk. Some beers do have delicious and easy-drinking tastes: Guinness and Sleeman Honey Brown come to mind. Alley Kat Brewery out of Edmonton has a really good citrus-ey drink called "Full Moon Ale" as well. Regardless, take the alcohol out, and keep the taste 100% identical, I wouldn't touch the stuff again in my life.

Although there was a preference for the taste of the 5.3 per cent beer, 45 per cent couldn't tell the difference between the two, and 66 per cent were as happy drinking the low-alcohol beer as the high-alcohol beer. About half reported no differences in their perceived intoxication.

of course they wouldn't notice an intoxication difference: they each had two beers stretched over two sessions!

Possible Safeway Strike

Safeway workers have taken a strike vote today, but no results are yet in. It's not sure which way they'll swing.

Safeway offered $1.50 over the next 18 months, but the union rejects this as chinzty. Now I know a few Safeway workers, and several of them have expressed the sentiment "you know I can make $2.50 an hour more by working at Sobeys".

The problem is: why don't they just go to Sobeys? Walk your ass down there. They have big "Help Wanted" signs up at Sobeys. They have openings, just like every other retailer in the province. If you can make more money there, just go work there! They are hiring. This is not Winnipeg.

If Safeway workers want Sobey's money, why not just quit and go work there?

Professor Darren E. Lund, the man who hates freedom and loves faggots

You've read the "offending" letter.

You've heard about the case

Now you know where to find him and how to recognize him. Enjoy communicating with the man who believes that anything that criticizes uranists is a criminal offense.

The man who hates your freedom.

The man who hates your rights.

Don't let him get away from an encounter with you.

Helping the good Reverend Stephen Boissoin in his fight

I am reproducing here the Stephen Boissoin letter to the Red Deer Advocate. I do this and stress wholeheartedly that Stephen Boissoin is 100% correct and I agree with every word that he wrote:

The following is not intended for those who are suffering from an unwanted sexual identity crisis. For you, I have understanding, care, compassion and tolerance. I sympathize with you and offer you my love and fellowship. I prayerfully beseech you to seek help, and I assure you that your present enslavement to homosexuality can be remedied. Many outspoken, former homosexuals are free today.

Instead, this is aimed precisely at every individual that in any way supports the homosexual machine that has been mercilessly gaining ground in our society since the 1960s. I cannot pity you any longer and remain inactive. You have caused far too much damage.

My banner has now been raised and war has been declared so as to defend the precious sanctity of our innocent children and youth, that you so eagerly toil, day and night, to consume. With me stand the greatest weapons that you have encountered to date - God and the "Moral Majority." Know this, we will defeat you, then heal the damage that you have caused. Modern society has become dispassionate to the cause of righteousness. Many people are so apathetic and desensitized today that they cannot even accurately define the term "morality."

The masses have dug in and continue to excuse their failure to stand against horrendous atrocities such as the aggressive propagation of homo- and bisexuality. Inexcusable justifications such as, "I'm just not sure where the truth lies," or "If they don't affect me then I don't care what they do," abound from the lips of the quantifiable majority.

Face the facts, it is affecting you. Like it or not, every professing heterosexual is have their future aggressively chopped at the roots.

Edmund Burke's observation that, "All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing," has been confirmed time and time again. From kindergarten class on, our children, your grandchildren are being strategically targeted, psychologically abused and brainwashed by homosexual and pro-homosexual educators.

Our children are being victimized by repugnant and premeditated strategies, aimed at desensitizing and eventually recruiting our young into their camps. Think about it, children as young as five and six years of age are being subjected to psychologically and physiologically damaging pro-homosexual literature and guidance in the public school system; all under the fraudulent guise of equal rights.

Your children are being warped into believing that same-sex families are acceptable; that men kissing men is appropriate.

Your teenagers are being instructed on how to perform so-called safe same gender oral and anal sex and at the same time being told that it is normal, natural and even productive. Will your child be the next victim that tests homosexuality positive?

Come on people, wake up! It's time to stand together and take whatever steps are necessary to reverse the wickedness that our lethargy has authorized to spawn. Where homosexuality flourishes, all manner of wickedness abounds.

Regardless of what you hear, the militant homosexual agenda isn't rooted in protecting homosexuals from "gay bashing." The agenda is clearly about homosexual activists that include, teachers, politicians, lawyers, Supreme Court judges, and God forbid, even so-called ministers, who are all determined to gain complete equality in our nation and even worse, our world.

Don't allow yourself to be deceived any longer. These activists are not morally upright citizens, concerned about the best interests of our society. They are perverse, self-centered and morally deprived individuals who are spreading their psychological disease into every area of our lives. Homosexual rights activists and those that defend them, are just as immoral as the pedophiles, drug dealers and pimps that plague our communities.

The homosexual agenda is not gaining ground because it is morally backed. It is gaining ground simply because you, Mr. and Mrs. Heterosexual, do nothing to stop it. It is only a matter of time before some of these morally bankrupt individuals such as those involved with NAMBLA, the North American Man/Boy Lovers Association, will achieve their goal to have sexual relations with children and assert that it is a matter of free choice and claim that we are intolerant bigots not to accept it.

If you are reading this and think that this is alarmist, then I simply ask you this: how bad do things have to become before you will get involved? It's time to start taking back what the enemy has taken from you. The safety and future of our children is at stake.

Bad news for Mark Steyn's chances

A Red Deer man was found guilty by the Alberta Human Rights Commission for the dangerous crime of offending a faggot.

Update, 7:45pm: The text of the letter is now reproduced right here, with my full endorsement.

Western Standard news

Those of us with subscriptions (or at least email subscriptions) to Western Stanard today received the following information from Ezra:

Dear friends,

As you know, the Western Standard stopped publishing our print edition last month.

But I'm happy to announce that one of the Western Standard's founders, Matthew Johnston, has assembled a small team of our former staff, and they're going to revive our magazine's websites.

Working with other long-time Western Standard staff like writer Kevin Steel and sales manager Josh Frederick, they're going to try to make a go of it online — and I wish them good luck. They loved the magazine and I'm sure they'll do a great job of the new venture.

I'm moving on to other projects, but Matthew and his team have invited me to continue to blog from time to time on the site, and I'm sure I will.

So make sure to visit www.westernstandard.ca to see what the new team is up to — and keep an eye peeled for their e-mail updates.

Join with me in wishing them good luck!

Yours truly,
Ezra Levant

P.S. For those of you who had a print subscription to the magazine, I'm pleased to announce that we're finalizing an agreement with another Canadian magazine to partially fulfill your print subscription, at no cost to you.
Stay tuned for more news on that.

P.P.S. Once again, please accept my thanks to you for your support these past years — and please support Matthew's new and improved Western Standard website.

Any guesses as to what this other national magazine would be? Surely not Macleans, who the last thing they need right now is for the Canadian Islamic Congress to link them to Ezra "dirty publishing Jew" Levant.

Don't think about what this blogpost is, think about what it isn't

Conrad Black was sentenced today to 78 months in jail.

Micheal Vick was sentenced today to 23 months in jail.





Now that it can sink in, think about what I could have been writing about today:

Conrad Black was sentenced this week to 108 years in jail.

Robert Pickton was sentenced this week to 10 years in jail.

Here's an idea:

Toronto — Hundreds of demonstrators urging the federal government to take action on climate change gave Prime Minister Stephen Harper a massive wake-up call on Saturday — literally.

With a single cellphone outstretched to the large crowd in downtown Toronto, student activist Jen Hassum dialled the Prime Minister's Office and joined the placard-waving crowd in shouting their demand that Ottawa recommit to the Kyoto Protocol and reduce greenhouse gas emissions."

Here's an idea: sometime next week at 5am, hundreds of pro-life Torontonians should hold a massive pro-life rally directly in front of Jen Hassum's house...

Update, 6:12pm: Ms. Hassum has so far eluded my search for her home address, but her office phone number for those who wish to reverse her little stunt is 416-978-4911 x228.

Update, 6:20pm: I almost forgot to observe the protester's sign in the photo accompanying the article: "J'AI CHAUD". That would be French for "I'm hot". Checked the news lately, buddy?

MACLEANS MAGAZINE: A CASE STUDY OF MEDIA-PROPAGATED ISLAMOPHOBIA: A book review

If you want an insight into how little a bunch of Muslim crazies can fail to learn at Osgoode Hall Law School, take a little gander at the official complaint against Macleans by three dedicated worshippers of Islam, the dirty false religion of Mohammed, who walked the earth as an angel and an agent of Satan.

The first thing you observe when you read the 70(!) page complaint is that it reads less as some sort of coherent argument against an alleged assault on Islam by the magazine as put together by three men who will soon become lawyers, and more like some sort of Grade 8 exercise in "highlighting the relevant points of opinion articles". After each article by Mark Steyn or Barbara Amiel (those Derka-Derkas do hate the Jews, don't they? they even insert the header before Amiel's column on the book "Londonistan" as "The press darling who became 'the Jew'"), the students proceed to list the main points of the article, at no point save one or two challenging the authenticity of the statements.

For example:

Other examples of fear mongering include:
• The extent of the terrorist threat to Canada is grossly exaggerated by presenting unsubstantiated allegations of fact: Canada has allegedly been infiltrated by Muslim terrorist, bases of anti-Canadian and anti-Western hatred have been set by Canadian Muslims, and a high number of Muslim Canadians have devoted themselves to “radical Islamism” and have acquired “combatant status” with terrorist enemies.
• Private and public places of worship such as private homes and universities are alleged to be centers of radicalization and terrorist planning.

So, then, this would be wrong? Macleans has in both its opinion and its news stories on Muslims documented their allegations of firebrand Imams believing Bush committed 9/11, RCMP arrests of Muslims plotting crimes against Canadian targets, etc. etc. I can offhand link to this CSIS report or this Canadian Press story. What do these child-rapist Mohammed, Satan's angel and founder of the perverse Islamic pseudo-religion followers have to dispute them? Their constant claims that these stories are just fear-mongering?

The extent of protests that occurred in some predominantly Muslim countries following the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in Denmark, are grossly exaggerated to represent that the most Muslims reacted in a violent manner to these publications.

So they didn't read this story, I'm guessing. And I am aware that while these articles are referring to come violence, the students claim Macleans implies "most Muslims" reacted this way. From what I can see, the students are suffering from a form of identification bias, where any article written about any Muslim which refers to him as such is seen as a blanket description of 100.00% of all Muslims, as opposed to being brought up for comparison or cultural factors consideration.

A “substantial number” of Western Muslims are alleged to share the basic goals of terrorists, namely the imposition of an oppressive branch of Shariah law on Western society and its citizens. No evidence is presented for this assertion although it is probable that it is a gross misrepresentation based on the support by a large number of Muslims for the use of religious arbitration to settle some family law matters. Such support would hardly qualify as a sharing of terrorist goals as alleged by Maclean’s.

Except there is evidence, whether "presented" or not, for this assertion. It has absolutely nothing to do with "Muslims supporting religious artibration in family law", and everything to do with stories such as the London tube bombers' imam supporting the bombings, or closer to home 12% of Canadian Muslims, totally some 84,000 people, supported the plot to behead the Prime Minister. Do the offended students not feel that a population the equivalent to Fredericton or Prince George is a fairly "substantial number", all things considered?

• 80% of Canadian Muslims imams are alleged to be “radical” based on the assessment of an Italian imam who visits Canada “every now and then.” This allegation is linked to the further (racist) assertion that Muslims at large have a culture of handing over their kids to radical imams in order to radicalize them. These two false allegations are combined to assert that the Canadian Muslim population is mostly radicalized.
• The assertion that there exists an extremist fringe among Canadian Muslims and that this fringe will shape the Canadian Muslim community to also become radical. It is also alleged that young Canadian Muslims at large are being indoctrinated with fundamentalism, being indoctrinated by extremist clerics, and being indoctrinated to impose Islamic law over non-Muslim westerners.

No editing here folks, they literally have put these two points together: to wit, Macleans believes that 80% of Muslims are radical, and that they are an extremist fringe. Can't these law students understand that the 80% claim is not being cited as accurate as a number but rather indicative of a belief or pipe-dream? Apparently not.

The reaction of some Muslims to the Pope’s comment regarding the Prophet Muhammad is grossly distorted to represent that Muslims at large responded to these comments in a violent manner. The context of the Pope’s comments is exploited to allege that Islam is a “medieval system” that has not reconciled itself with reason, and that Muslims are an uncivilized people incapable of engaging in a reasonable discussion with the Pope.

So, uh, any other religions go on wild violent protests because of somebody's comments lately? When these students can find another religious group acting this way in 2007, then they can talk about this issue. Until then, just shut up.

Another central theme of these articles is the portrayal of Muslims at large as people who possess values that share nothing in common with Western values such as freedom, democracy, and human rights.

And so you think the best reaction to this is to run to the nearest kangaroo court and, in a shameless attack on freedom, democracy, and human rights, try to get government fiat to shut down those mean people who said things you didn't like. I'll say it again, folks, don't hire any lawyers graduating from Osgoode Hall Law School this semester!

The use of some unfortunate incidents in some predominantly Muslim countries to represent that Muslims in general suppress and oppress women.28 A growing Muslim population is posited as posing a severe threat to women’s rights. In particular, Muslims are alleged to believe that men are better than women, and to believe that honour killings of women are acceptable. It is also alleged that a growing Muslim population in the West will result in women being prevented from participating in protests, women being forced to wear burqas, and women being assaulted and abused by Muslims unless they are wearing “Islamic coverings.”

Are England and France two of these "predominantly Muslim countries"? Because if you read on in their own complaint, they quote the following passage from a January 9, 2006 Mark Steyn article:

But the "honour killings" are getting closer. In London last summer, the police announced they were re-opening investigations into 120 deaths among British Muslim girls that they'd hitherto declined to look at too closely on grounds of "cultural sensitivity." There's a small flurry -- enough almost to form a new category for the Governor-General's Awards -- in books itemizing the violence to women, gay men and other approved groups in the new EUtopia: Claire Berlinski's Menace In Europe and Bruce Bawer's While Europe Slept are a staggering accumulation of riveting vignettes, like the non-Muslim girls in les banlieues of France opting to wear veils and other Islamic coverings to lessen the likelihood of being abused and assaulted in the streets.

There you have it: honour killings in the West, as well as non-Muslims women harassed in the West. Exactly the stuff in real life that the students object to being talked about.

But really I'm saving the best for last. You the good Third Edge of the Sword reader(s) may be able to find trinkets in the tome that interest you (at 70 pages, its at least 4 times longer than the longest Kevin Taft book) more than this one. But for my money, this is the bit that takes the cake:

A notable feature of Maclean’s journalism has been the publication of alleged statements of facts and generalizations about Muslims which can only be described as racist and xenophobic. Added to this has been an attempt to promote the work of writers and “intellectuals” broadly recognized as promoting hatred and Islamophobia. The publication by a reputable national magazine of these racist and xenophobic statements represents an attempt to normalize the use of a racist language and to legitimate the work of writers and “intellectuals” broadly recognized as promoting hatred and Islamophobia. Examples include:
• The historical conquest by a Muslim monarch of the present day city of Istanbul is used to represent that present day Muslims at large believe in the sodomizing and beheading of Europeans.
• The representation that Muslims at large engage in sex with minors and animals.
• The assertion that Muslims utilize useful products imported from the West while providing only extremism and terrorism in return.
• The representation that a large number of Muslims are sheep-shaggers.”

This article attempts to promote the hateful and racist views of an Italian writer, Oriana Fallaci, wanted in several countries in Europe for the publication of hate material against Muslims and cited by the United Nations as a promoter of racism and xenophobia against European Muslims. Ms. Fallaci is portrayed as a fearless and heroic figure who is authoring “magnificent screeds” on how Europe can “save” itself from Muslims. Her citing by several countries and institutions for the promotion of hatred is attributed to the alleged Muslim ppersecution of journalists and the Muslim exploitation of the legal system. Flagrantly racist and false statements are made about Islam and Muslims. Muslims are portrayed as people who condone and engage in sex with minors and animals, and who wish to sodomize and massacre Europeans. Another feature of this article are its attacks on laws prohibiting hateful and discriminatory publications against identifiable groups. According to the author, these laws are being exploited by Muslims to persecute writers who narrate the “truth” about Muslims.

Both of these passages are in regards to the Mark Steyn column "Celebrate tolerance, or you're dead - Oriana Fallaci appeals to Europe to save itself. Good luck" from April 28, 2006. The resonating feature of these "talking points" being brought up is that apparently these law students have no understanding of the English language. Immigrants, perhaps? It would explain most of why they wrote what they wrote. Let's start at the top: are they sure that "racist and xenophobic" are the only way to discuss the (admitted!) "facts about Muslims" being brought up in, wait for it: a newsmagazine? How about "relevent and frightening and accurate"? And why not analyze Steyn's reference to the fall of Constantinople as intended, as a foil (or not-so-foil) to the contemporary Islam of Ayatollah Khomeini's Blue Book? As Steyn writes:

for example, Ayatollah Khomeini's "Blue Book" and its helpful advice on romantic matters: "If a man marries a minor who has reached the age of nine and if during the defloration he immediately breaks the hymen, he cannot enjoy her any longer." I'll say. I know it always ruins my evening. Also: "A man who has had sexual relations with an animal, such as a sheep, may not eat its meat. He would commit sin."

If the Ayatollah's statements are being taken out of context somehow, it is the student's responsibility to show us where. Otherwise, "The representation that Muslims at large engage in sex with minors and animals" doesn't seem entirely inaccurate, does it? Even barring this, Steyn in fact notes how Muslims aren't doing that, when he comically writes:

I enjoy the don't-eatyour-sexual-partner stuff as much as the next infidel, but the challenge presented by Islam is not that the cities of the Western world will be filling up with sheep-shaggers. If I had to choose, I'd rather Mohammed Atta was downriver in Egypt hitting on the livestock than flying through the windows of Manhattan skyscrapers. But he's not.

Quite explicitly here, Steyn is comparing "old" Islamic traditions (ie. "sex with 9 year olds, as done by Mohammed, the dirty angel of Satan spreading Lucifer's dark pseudo-religion of Islam) with "new" Islamic traditions (ie. blowing up Bali beach resorts and murdering Russian schoolgirls). I agree that neither of them put Muslims in a positive light, but rather than complain about it, why can't these three illiterate immigrants simply prove Steyn wrong or admit that their fake religion has a large variety of social ills? Nah, its easier to claim "representation that a large number of Muslims are sheep-shaggers" when the opposite is true, and hope that a Human Rights Commission NDP-voter agrees with their attack on the evil white man. Even the bit about Oriana Fallaci "wanted in several countries in Europe for the publication of hate material against Muslims and cited by the United Nations as a promoter of racism and xenophobia against European Muslims" is proving Steyn's point. He doesn't perhaps "promote" her as much as the illiterate immigrant trio claim so much as highlight some of what she writes. Indeed, that the students are even pursuing this case to a human rights tribunal indicates that they want to do to Steyn the same thing that the Europeans did to Fallaci: criminalize speech they disagree with. Steyn even tosses in the complaint by Muslims against the Western Standard into the mix, reminding us that these three students have already thrown their lot in with an assault on free speech that should not be forgiven.

According to the authors, this article makes "7 implications": the last three are the real gems:

5. Oriana Fallaci is wanted in several European countries for the promotion of hatred and racism against Muslims only because Muslims have ganged up on her and are exploiting the legal system to their advantage.
6. Laws have been made in Europe in order to permit Muslims to win lawsuits by invoking bogus claims of religious and racial discrimination.
7. Muslims routinely launch meritless lawsuits against writers.

Now where would we get that idea??

Update, 6:26pm: Courtesy of Small Dead Animals:

The daughter of a British imam is living under police protection after receiving death threats from her father for converting to Christianity.

The 31-year-old, whose father is the leader of a mosque in Lancashire, has moved house an astonishing 45 times after relatives pledged to hunt her down and kill her.

The British-born university graduate, who uses the pseudonym Hannah for her own safety, said she renounced the Muslim faith to escape being forced into an arranged marriage when she was 16.

She has been in hiding for more than a decade but called in police only a few months ago after receiving a text message from her brother. In it, he said he would not be held responsible for his actions if she failed to return to Islam.

Officers have agreed to offer her protection in case of an attempt on her life.

[...]

A study this year found that 36 per cent of British Muslims between 16 and 24 believe those who convert to another religion should be punished by death.