Dust my Broom - News, Views and Blues from a Free Canadian

Obamanuke?

markscollins@hotmail.com (Mark ) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 18:30:49 +0000

Kate McMillan has some, er, fun:

"Was Truman right to end WWII?"

For the very first time in his presidency...

Mark

Ottawa

"What the W Post is reporting on Pink Lloyd’s treaty"

markscollins@hotmail.com (Mark ) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 18:08:25 +0000

Norman spectates:

...

Afghan roadside bombs a new priority for U.S.

The challenges are different from those in Iraq, Gates told reporters Thursday before a visit to a Wisconsin factory that is producing a rugged new armored vehicle for use in Afghanistan [see here]. He said most of the improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, in Iraq are based mainly on artillery shells and are triggered electronically. Those in Afghanistan, he said, are made primarily from fertilizers such as ammonium nitrate, with mines as detonators...

Earlier at Daimnation!

MINIPAX?

To think that this softy gasbag was once our semi-superstar (at least in many Canadian eyes) foreign minister.

A picture may be worth a thousand words...

markscollins@hotmail.com (Mark ) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 17:51:31 +0000

...indeed it may influence history. But a fake is a fake is a fake. George Will demands honesty:

An image evaporates

...The Spanish Civil War, although small in terms of the number of combatants, was perhaps the century's emblematic conflict. As a rehearsal for the Second World War, Spain's agony became a proxy struggle between fascism and communism, with democracy crushed in the middle. And for perhaps the first time, pictures supplemented and sometimes supplanted words as primary shapers of opinion about a conflict...

...the Sept. 23, 1936, issue of the French magazine Vu published (as did Life magazine 10 months later) what became perhaps the century's iconic photograph -- "Falling Soldier." It was taken by, and launched the remarkable career of, a 22-year-old Hungarian refugee from fascism, photographer Robert Capa.

It shows a single figure, a loyalist -- that is, anti-fascist -- soldier, supposedly at the instant of death from a bullet fired by one of Franco's soldiers. The soldier is falling backward on a hillside, arms outstretched, his rifle being flung from his right hand. This was, surely, stunning testimony to photography's consciousness-raising and history-shaping truth-telling, the camera's indisputable accuracy, its irreducibly factual rendering of reality, its refutation of epistemological pessimism about achieving certainty based on what our eyes tell us.

Probably not. A dispute that has flared intermittently for more than 30 years has been fueled afresh, and perhaps settled, by a Spanish professor who has established that the photo could not have been taken when and where it reportedly was -- Sept. 5, 1936, near Cerro Muriano.

The photo was taken about 35 miles from there. The precise place has been determined by identifying the mountain range in the photo's background. The professor says that there was no fighting near there at that time, and concludes that Capa staged the photo...

...What was once thought to be blood spurting from the falling soldier's skull is actually a tassel on his cap...

Capa was a man of the left, and "Falling Soldier" helped to alarm the world about fascism rampant. But noble purposes do not validate misrepresentations. Richard Whelan, Capa's biographer, calls it "trivializing" to insist on knowing whether this photo actually shows a soldier mortally wounded. Whelan says that "the picture's greatness actually lies in its symbolic implications, not in its literal accuracy."

Rubbish. The picture's greatness evaporates if its veracity is fictitious...

Mark

Ottawa

"Canada’s full of people pretending to be French..."

godscopybookheadings@hotmail.com (Publius) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 16:05:21 +0000

Jeremy Clarkson on modern Britain:

It’s a lovely idea, to get out of this stupid, Fairtrade, Brown-stained, Mandelson- skewed, equal-opportunities, multicultural, carbon-neutral, trendily left, regionally assembled, big-government, trilingual, mosque-drenched, all-the-pigs-are-equal, property-is-theft hellhole and set up shop somewhere else.
But where? You can’t go to France because you need to complete 17 forms in triplicate every time you want to build a greenhouse, and you can’t go to Switzerland because you will be reported to your neighbours by the police and subsequently shot in the head if you don’t sweep your lawn properly, and you can’t go to Italy because you’ll soon tire of waking up in the morning to find a horse’s head in your bed because you forgot to give a man called Don a bundle of used notes for “organising” a plumber.

You can’t go to Australia because it’s full of things that will eat you, you can’t go to New Zealand because they don’t accept anyone who is more than 40 and you can’t go to Monte Carlo because they don’t accept anyone who has less than 40 mill. And you can’t go to Spain because you’re not called Del and you weren’t involved in the Walthamstow blag. And you can’t go to Germany ... because you just can’t.

Will there be minorities in heaven?

djerrom@gmail.com (Darcey) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 13:48:27 +0000

The best awkward science fair project you will see all day. Well, maybe not. Hey, is that James Brown?

Life is so unfair - More indians in jail then white people

djerrom@gmail.com (Darcey) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 13:48:00 +0000

Some dude calling himself a 'correctional investigator' and calling himself Howard Sapers released a report to the masturbatory glee of the media on the Canadian governments lack of support programs for aboriginal prisoners and through it all it yells out the typical statistics about criminal pony-tails but this nugget takes the bannock:

"Previous attempts to reduce the gap in outcomes between aboriginal and non-aboriginal offenders have largely failed," (CBC)

So what does this signatory of the equality of outcomes really mean? More non-aboriginals (read white males) in jail and less aboriginals? The agenda is already at work here in this country when we look at the scenario taking place in Caledonia, Ontario or more recently the story of Chief Murray Clearsky of the Waywayseecappo First Nation in Manitoba. He has had three drunk driving convictions and in his latest he was double the legal limit for the rest of us but his heartless punishment was a one month conditional sentence and he stays free on his rez where he is so looked up to as a pillar in his community. If that ain't 'doing good' by Sapersucker then I don't know what is.

Sapersucker's report is actually hers. None of the media reports I've seen tell you who the author of the report actually is but you have to read the whole thing which the media typically doesn't - surprise:

Michelle M. Mann is an Ottawa based consultant and writer dedicated to legal and policy issues, particularly those with social justice implications, including human rights, gender analysis and Aboriginal matters. (#)

Yes indeed, Michelle M. MANn doesn't explicitly single out white people as her lowest denominator benchmark as she includes the plight of women offenders in her report (Good Intentions, Disappointing Results) as equal in plight to aboriginal offenders which is strange as the report is supposed to be about about how we could do better to serve criminal indians and we as tax payers pulled more cash out of the money tree to pay her:

There remains limited access to programs in the community, especially for women and Aboriginal offenders.

And on and on. Everyone is over victimized minus the over-privileged and under-prison represented heartless white male who paid her a chunk of change to to pen her doc. Thank god I'm a Metis where my initial intake classification Custody Rating Scale is maximum security as I would be getting really worried here but thankfully I can leave that little problem to the white males.

The last word to MANn:

It’s that time of the year again when people who care about such things, start worrying about their lawns and whether they will be weed free, comparable to their neighbours’. And while I haven’t had a lawn since I was a kid growing up in Kingston Ontario, each to their own one might say, so long as it stays that way.

Unless you are some white dude with a plastic jug of Roundup just trying to do the right thing, then she is going to have an issue.

Image - The Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge on the Nekaneet First Nation in southern Saskatchewan.

Toronto: Where watching homosexuals have sex on floats is more popular then the Santa Claus parade

djerrom@gmail.com (Darcey) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 13:44:11 +0000

This is your Canada folks. There is something to be said about the statistics on the turnout for this years Santa Claus parade in Toronto where they are predicting numbers in the hundreds of thousands versus the average 1.2 million turnout for the anally introspective gay sex parade. Even politicians are worse off for it if they don't show up to shake an ungloved paw with members of Canada's one per-centers and then throw out candy and condoms to the crowd afterwards with their greasy little scum-bag paws. No hand sanitizer necessary.

Waving and smiling because it would be so intolerant if you didn't.

Christmas is a different thing though. It stinks of religion and morality and of god and holy spirits but there just isn't enough elves getting their chocolates filled or decadence in the revelry to make it worthwhile. Happy Holidays, Seasons Greetings - bah humbug!

We want mistletoe hanging off our belt buckles and Jesus in chains.

Thank god the shit hole is only an island in the greater scheme of Canada:

Thanks for imposing on the rest of us. The deviants.

French Bastards: No English Assholes Allowed

djerrom@gmail.com (Darcey) — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 23:51:39 +0000

The idea that there is something severely wrong with this country hits you when you realize hey, why does the whole damn country have to learn french for the benefit of a few but you can't learn english in Quebec?

The Parti Québécois is urging the Quebec government to use the Constitution’s notwithstanding clause to limit access to private English schools after the Supreme Court quashed part of the province’s language legislation. (CBC)

Terry Glavin helps savage the apology industy

markscollins@hotmail.com (Mark ) — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 19:48:49 +0000

The man's on a roll:

Q: How does a Canadian say hello? A: 'I'm sorry.'

Mitch Miyagawa is my colleague and student at the University of British Columbia. His family has now been thrice blessed with official government apologies. In this month's Walrus Magazine, Mitch canvasses Canada's strivings to be the Je M'excuse Capital of the entire universe...

"Concerned about our precious self-image as a peacemaking, multicultural country, Canada has been making every effort to lead the sorry parade. In addition to the residential school and Chinese head tax apologies, the federal government has also now said sorry for the Komagata Maru incident, when a ship full of immigrants from India was turned away from Vancouver Harbour, and established a historical recognition program “to recognize and commemorate the historical experiences and contributions of ethno-cultural communities affected by wartime measures and immigration restrictions applied in Canada.” And we became the first Western democracy to follow South Africa in establishing a truth and reconciliation commission, for the residential schools.

"Not surprisingly, other groups have come knocking on Ottawa’s door. . ."

Mark

Ottawa

Terry Glavin savages Globeite St. Rick Salutin (a live sheep)

markscollins@hotmail.com (Mark ) — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 19:13:05 +0000

Earlier from Mr Glavin,

Peter, Paul and Mary, and Salutin, and Fatah, and Noordin Top.

and yesterday:

Don't follow leaders. Watch the parking meters.

...
2. Who would write that the Taliban were grudgingly tolerated by Afghans, and it was because of the "honesty, integrity and good performance from all levels of government" the Taliban delivered? American white-nationalist and revisionist David Duke? British National Party leader and "anti-war" windbag Nick Griffin? Nope, neither. It was "left-wing" Canadian columnist Rick Salutin who wrote that, in the Globe and Mail today.

The pump don't work 'cause the vandals took the handles [check the video]...

More on St. Rick at the end of this Torch post.

Mark

Ottawa