the blog quebecois

There's a minor kerfuffle going on at the Alberta Legislature. A Liberal opposition member, Hugh MacDonald, accused Tory MLA Drew Hutton of possessing "hate literature" in the august chamber.

Mr. Hutton claims that he found the document in some papers handed to him and threw it away once he realized what it was.

And what was it? Well, The Edmonton Journal found it so utterly horrible that it couldn't bring itself to even describe its contents, save to note that it

"includes a rant against people who don't speak English; suggests things like the Miss Asian Canada contest and the United Negro College Fund discriminate against Caucasians; and says there's no place for girls in the Boy Scouts."

Whew. Fortunately Charlie Gillis of the National Post has a stronger stomach for this appalling stuff, and gave a bit more of the flavor of the thing (sorry, no link available):

The document was an apparent attempt at "redneck" humour, purporting to reveal the thoughts of true Canadians on a variety of issues.

It included attacks on gays, women, minorities, drug users, and gun-control advocates.

Among them:

"I don't think that being a minority makes you a victim of anything except numbers.

"I have the right NOT to be tolerant of others because they are different, weird, or tick me off.

"If you are selling me a milkshake, a pack of cigarettes, a newspaper, or a hotel room, you must do it in English! As a matter of fact, if you want to be a Canadian you should have to speak English."

Now, frankly, some of this might be a little tendentious, but I hardly see where it qualifies as "hate literature." It doesn't seem to contain any racial slurs, nor does it seem to advocate violence. I'm sure Mr. Gillis could have provided better examples if there were any.

I've heard worse from Don Cherry any Saturday night you'd care to mention.

It is interesting, too, to see what new territory the PC speech police are lately staking out. Apparently criticizing gun-control advocates, or drug users -- drug users! -- is beyond the pale these days. Or daring to demur on girls joining the Boy Scouts.

This is good, because our various Human Rights commissars are in need of new things to crack down on. They've certainly not eager to tackle real life examples of hate, like, say, Palestinians marching through Calgary shouting "Death to the Jews!" or rioting at Concordia University.

Or the group of militant lesbians who stormed a Catholic church in Montreal a few years ago, burning crosses on the steps, knocking the priest to the ground, and desecrating statues and paintings with used condoms and tampons. They weren't even criminally charged for this: A police spokeswoman said with a straight face that the attackers were engaged in "political speech."

It's gormless wankers like Hugh MacDonald who facilitate these ugly trends. They bellow over trifles and wink at the outrageous.

A fascinating piece in Legal Affairs (courtesy of Instapundit) on the nature of "law" and "crime" in online games.

I don't play these myself (apart from periodic, suicidal forays into Counterstrike) and so I'd never even considered these issues.

A Florida man intercepts an alligator eyeing some tasty kid-sized snacks. Hero or criminal? I report, you decide.

I got called for jury duty a couple of years ago. I'd never been in a courtroom before, so I was looking forward to fulfilling my civic duty, and, from a future blogger's perspective, reporting from within the belly of the beast, as it were.
The hell I was. As I whined to my cousin's husband, a senior police officer:

"I've looked at the summons back and forth and there's no exemption that fits me."

"Which would be?"

"I don't wannaaaaaa!"

There were some other considerations. There was a big trial coming up, of a Vietnamese drug gang.

These wily Oriental gentlemen were quixotic and psychotic enough to go down with all guns blazing when the SWAT team had the drop on them.

No doubt they were also unfamiliar with the quaint Western tradition that jurors are not to be whacked.

There was talk of building an entirely new, very secure courthouse, or of holding the trial at the local military base, with MPs with MGs standing watch. (Eventually, the government completely renovated one of its main courtrooms, at the cost of several million dollars. The trial still hasn't been held -- still tied up on procedural matters and such, which is what happens when you try to conduct a RICO (the U.S. Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization) prosecution without RICO-friendly legislation.)

Also there was a similar case in British Columbia that had dragged on for two years or so, to the point where the judge directed the government to boost the jurors' per diems to $150 to compensate them for their time.

Two years.

So I with some trepidation showed up at the required place at the required time, with a shine on my shoes and new pants too.

I needn't have bothered. I was one of 200 or so, most of whom looked like scowling extras from The Grapes of Wrath.

After rollcall and the two or three arrest warrants issued for those who didn't say "Yo!" we all enjoyed an interminable video on the glories of the Jury System.

I can say without fear of contradiction that the Solicitor-General of the Province of Alberta, Canada, does not waste taxpayer dollars on paying professional actors. It was like a porn flick without the skin.

Then a couple of men with briefcases marched smartly in. Then they marched smartly out.

One charge plea bargained down, the other pled guilty on some sort of regulatory infraction.

We were stampeding out of there just as the judge was saying ". . . and thank you all for --"

Some of us couldn't wait for the elevator and went pell-mell down the stairs and finally out into the brilliant sunshine.

The wheels of justice do indeed grind exceedingly fine, and slow, oh boy, so very slow.

MommaBear at On The Third Hand linked to this.

Which reminded me of this.

Thanks to our steely-eyed immigration departments, we are spared the plague of phony Beatles fans and obese Venezuelans.

(Actually, I was surprised by the latter. If fatness isn't "favored status" now it surely will be in the future.)

It's not like Canada is all that discriminating about whom she considers a "refugee."

I remember a case of a few years ago where we granted that status to an American woman who claimed that her husband was a mob boss who would surely harm her and that the US authorities refused to protect her.

Uh-huh. I heard a radio interview with an FBI spokesman who was chuckling under his breath as he discussed the matter. Unspoken but clearly hinted at was: "If you folks fell for this, well, then, you're welcome to have her."

I don't know what kind of a pathetic gang her husband is running, but if they can't organize a hit across the border, then I'll volunteer.

I figure we can save the $100,000+ per year the RCMP's probably paying to keep her hidden.

We've also taken "refugees" from the hideous regimes of Britain and Israel. While real refugees languish in real refugee camps. And real war criminals and real terrorists walk freely on Canadian streets. (I've got a National Post article about this, but it's not online, so I'll have to summarize it and post it later.)

So if I was the Venezuelan woman, I'd apply again in a year or two. Sooner or later she'll get a more sympathetic hearing.

Just when I thought that these guys couldn't get any dumber. Yet they continue to surprise.

From the Washington Post. (I forgot to get the link. So sue me.)

Amnesty in Works for Music File Traders

© 2003 Reuters

I thought I should include the Reuters copyright in case they get pissy about it; though maybe they should instead be feeling nervous about reprinting Hamas propaganda wholesale.

As much as I'd love to continue financing the cocaine-fuelled careers of the fine folk who've inflicted Mariah Carey and Justin Timberlake upon the long-suffering public, I'm afraid they're going to have to tweak their legal strategy somewhat.

Suing your putative customers is a bad idea. Making them swear to some kind of Trumanesque loyalty oath is laughable.

Engage brain. Give people what they want when they want it for a competitive price and you just might recapture your market.

Either that or the P2P geeks will redouble their anonymizing efforts and then you'll truly be in a room of twisty little passages, all alike.

Link (heh, now there's a name for the Internet) Byfield in the Calgary Sun:

September 14, 2003
Canadians prefer mythology
Anti-democratic attitude pervades eastern judiciary and political establishment
By LINK BYFIELD -- Calgary Sun

In the end, we'll have to find provincial solutions to federal problems like this one. Meanwhile, it's good to have a few principled people out there in that cesspool still willing to fight for democracy.

Whatever your opinions on this matter of homosexual (I'm against it, for reasons I won't go into here) marriage, you can't but marvel at the low, dishonest route the government and courts have travelled to enact it.

The government typically bankrolls these sorts of "Charter rights" cases through its Court Challenges Program (always on behalf of radical feminist/homosexual/racial groups) and then sends Justice Department lawyers to -- if not deliberately throw the case -- argue against it so ineptly that the outcome's rarely in doubt.

The spectacle of senior judges partying down with the plaintiffs hints at a scandalous conflict of interest that in a less corrupt system would see their asses hauled before a Parliamentary committee investigating judicial misconduct.

Of course nothing of the sort will happen, and they'll instead be lionized in the press for their "courage" and "principle."

Consider this hypothetical: The case goes unanimously the other way, and a few weeks later the judges are exchanging high-fives with Focus On The Family and other social-conservative and religious amicus litigants.

Would homosexual activists be saying, "Oh, well. It's nice that they've got the occasional evening to relax"?

Or would they be screaming -- correctly -- that the fix was in?

So Microsoft's closing down their free chat rooms, ostensibly to "protect the chilllllldren."

Well, pardon my cynicism, but I think it's rather a matter of Microsoft looking out for its bottom line (not, as an unrepentant capitalist myself, that there's anything wrong with that).

They've got to be running that service at a loss, and saw the opportunity to roll it into a subscription package as the only way to make money at it. (They certainly won't be getting mine -- my opinion of chat is the same as Dave Barry's: "Citizen's Band radio with lousy typing.")

Then too, their lawyers are probably starting to get concerned about possible liability. Ten years ago this might have seemed paranoid -- the courts have consistently ruled that ISPs, bulletin boards, etc., qualify as "common carriers," with pretty much unlimited immunity from civil or criminal consequences.

People plan and carry out crimes using the phone system all the time, but no one expects telephone companies to be held responsible for that. Nor are they required to monitor every call on the chance that someone, somewhere, is conducting illegal activities.

Somehow it's all different when it comes to the scary scary Internet, though, and in a legal climate that countenances the raping of legitimate businesses (see tobacco, asbestos, firearms; and soon at your local courthouse, fast food), Microsoft's lawyers are just being prudent.

I got a hit from the RCMP's Web site today.

Simple, innocent coincidence, right?

Rrriiight.

I checked it out a bit more. The search terms were "Quebecois" and "jackass."

Great, so they've got my description, too..

Well, better safe than sorry, so I think I'll reformat my hard drive and dispose of a few, er, "items."

Right after I see who's kicking at the door. This shouldn't take longer than five or six years, tops.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Mike Rowe thinks it's funny that his catchy name for a Web site design company sounds a lot like Microsoft.

"Since my name is Mike Rowe, I thought it would be funny to add 'soft' to the end of it," said Rowe, a 17-year-old computer geek and Grade 12 student in Victoria, British Columbia.

[See here.]

Microsoft Corp. and its attorneys have demanded that he give up his domain name, the Vancouver Province newspaper reported Sunday.

Company spokesman Jim Desler said Sunday, "Microsoft has been in communication with Mr. Rowe in a good faith effort to reach a mutually agreeable resolution. And we remain hopeful we can resolve this issue to everyone's satisfaction."

Well, this didn't take long, did it? From The Smoking Gun, via Instapundit:

FEBRUARY 5--It took almost three days, but the first lawsuit has been filed in connection with Janet Jackson's breast. A Tennessee woman yesterday filed a proposed class action lawsuit "on behalf of all Americans" who watched the Super Bowl halftime show and were somehow injured by Miss Jackson's adorned nipple. In the below federal complaint, Terri Carlin, a 47-year-old Knoxville bank employee, contends that Jackson's exposure and other "sexually explicit conduct" during halftime festivities caused viewers to "suffer outrage, anger, embarrassment and serious injury." Details of those supposed injuries were not further described in the complaint filed by attorney Wayne A. Ritchie II. Along with Jackson, Carlin has named as defendants Justin Timberlake, CBS, MTV, and Viacom. Carlin's complaint seeks compensatory and punitive damages, though an exact dollar figure is not specified. But it seems billions would be in order since Carlin notes that punitive damages should not exceed the gross revenues of all defendants for the past three years.

Some of us like to bury our bad investments. Others like to advertise them.

Washington Times:

DAYTON, Ohio, March 18 (UPI) -- An Ohio man filed a class-action lawsuit Thursday in Montgomery County Common Pleas Court against a business that sells male enhancement products.

David Parker purchased an eight-month supply of Enzyte for $399.60 in 2001, after reading published briefs that the product would enlarge his penis, Dayton Daily News reported Thursday.

Kirk Makin in The Globe and Mail:

The legal world is nervously eyeing the possibility of a Conservative government that red-circles lower-court judges who have a history of being receptive to the Charter in favour of judges who will further Tory political ideology.

Quick, get me Rewrite!

"The legal world is nervously eyeing the possibility of a Conservative government that red-circles lower-court judges who have a history of being receptive to a blood-soaked collectivist ideology in favour of judges who more strictly interpret their role as essentially deferential to the guidance of an elected Parliament."

Yeah, that works, too.

"We are likely to see more political debate and contestation about these two new judges than we have ever seen before," University of Toronto law professor Kent Roach said. "I think there is considerable nervousness in the legal establishment."

[ . . . ]

"This is the first time in its 129-year history that the Supreme Court has been an election campaign issue," constitutional lawyer David Stratas said. "If Mr. Harper is too overt about this, there will be a whole host of people concerned about court-packing. Until now, Supreme Court appointments are seen to have been made entirely on merit. Court-packing is alien to our culture. It would backfire. " [emphasis added]

Mr. Stratas, meet Professor Anand:

Apprehension is doubly high among members of the legal establishment who harbour political aspirations, University of Alberta law professor Sanjeev Anand said. [emphasis added]

But . . but, how can this be? Are all those meritorious social engineers of the Law just a bunch of meretricious political hacks, after all?

you're gonna make my day
gonna blow you away
when the fun begins

-- queen

EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. - Former St. Louis Blues player Mike Danton admitted in U.S. federal court today that he sought to have his agent killed as part of a plot that unravelled when the would-be hit man turned out to be a police informant.

Looking for similar cases, this was the first that I turned up on Google:

A 40-year old Canarsien and his 45-year-old business partner were arrested last weekend for allegedly trying to hire a hit man to kill their wives. Their big problem, however, was in their choice of hit men: an undercover cop working for the Kings County district attorney.

And this was the second:

(Rockford, June 10, 2004, 6:52 p.m.) A woman from Rockford pled guilty Thursday to trying to hire a hitman to kill her ex-husband.

Michele Brantman was arrested after an informant told police of her plan to have James Brantman killed.

The supposed hitman ended up being an undercover police officer.

Do we see something of a pattern here, folks? You go out and make a good-faith effort to hire a hitman, and somehow you wind up with a police informant or an undercover cop. What are the odds?

I wonder if it works the same way in reverse? You want to hire a police informant or an undercover cop to mow your lawn or something, and the guy turns out to be a hitman. I guess it wouldn't matter much if he does a good job on the lawn.

Bah, sez me. Cut out the middleman whenever possible, and save yourself $$$ and possibly 25-to-life or worse.

With that in mind, I offer -- for educational purposes only -- a link to Hit Man: A Technical Manual for Independent Contractors.

You might have some recollection of it: Originally published by Paladin Press, which specializes in survivalist/anarchist books and tapes, it became famous when a schlub named James Perry murdered three people in Maryland in 1993, following some of the book's instructions (but not all, like never checking into a hotel using your real name).

The investigation turned up the fact that Perry had ordered a copy of Hit Man from Paladin, and Paladin was later successfully sued for several million dollars by relatives of the victims. It doesn't carry the book anymore.

Dave Kopel wrote about the case, which raises many troubling questions about the First Amendment and third-party liability, in Reason magazine.

There's a more technical discussion of the law involved at Samsara's Blog.

As for Hit Man: Well, it ain't literature, but it is interesting. The book wasn't as advertised -- the advice of a genuine hitman -- but was pitched to Paladin as a fictional manuscript by a woman who reworked it into a "how-to" manual at the publisher's request. There's a lot that I, at least, hadn't thought about, on disguises, poisons, disposal of evidence (and bodies) and transporting weapons.

The online version is full of typos (though that probably is the fault of whoever keyed it in) and there aren't any pictures or diagrams, so you'll have to figure out how to build a silencer just by description. (If not, Paladin Press will be delighted to sell you Home Workshop Silencers, Vol. 1 for only $20.)

And remember, you didn't hear about the link from me. Now if you'll excuse me, I think the undercover cop is here to mow the lawn.

so no one told you life was gonna be this way
your job's a joke, you're broke, your love life's D.O.A
it's like you're always stuck in second gear

-- the rembrandts

You might have heard of the sexual harassment suit filed by a woman who worked as an assistant to the writing staff on the TV show Friends.

The Guardian:

The case arose after a former writers' assistant on the show, Amaani Lyle, accused the creative team of sexual harassment, though none of the remarks she complains about had been directed at her.

Among the frequent discussions about sex that had formed part of the creative process for the show, she claimed the team talked about how one of the writers had missed an opportunity to sleep with Jennifer Aniston, who played Rachel, and had spoken pejoratively of part of Courteney Cox Arquette's (Monica) anatomy.

The writers admit they discussed their own sex lives and their fantasies about actors in the show, but argue she has no case for 'passive' sexual harassment.

I think I've watched one episode of Friends from start to finish, and it was competently done, but nothing that I cared to watch again. I do remember that the plot revolved around sex or something. There was some subplot involving . . . sex, I think. There were a lot of double entendres, and even more single entendres.

Call it a hunch, but I'll bet that the topic of . . . sex got batted around in the writers' bullpen from time to time.

Lyle admits she was warned conversations would be more explicit than in her previous job, working as a writers' assistant on the children's channel Nickelodeon. She was fired in 1999 for typing too slowly and went on to file a sexual harassment suit against the makers of the show, Warner Bros Television Productions Inc.

Hm-hmm. Anyone notice something of a pattern here?

Lyle, 31, is now in Germany with the US air force.

Consider this a heads-up, flyboys.

like a criminal
did you think it could be like on tv?
where you could be big in your own movie?

-- john lydon

I came across this recently by accident, but I remember reading about it at the time -- it happened quite a few years ago and I thought it was funny enough to clip and enter into a database (sadly, now irretrievably corrupted) that I was using at the time.

Stettler is a small town in Alberta, about midway between Edmonton and Calgary.

i been doing it since
i was a young kid
i’ve come out grinnin’
when i fight authority
authority always wins

john mellencamp

[Homeowner] Castillo went down to the kitchen and confronted the [burglary] suspect, Chris Kemp, who is unknown to Castillo and his family. Kemp, who was dressed up in Castillo's mother's clothes including her leopard skin hat and matching scarf, was moving kitchen appliances around.

The Owner's Manual links the original story, if you're interested. For me, the cited portion and especially the picture will suffice. As a commenter on Gary's blog noted:

If you were born to look like that, your only choices are petty crime and crime lord in a comic book. No other jobs are available.

I hate it when this happens:

Alton attorney Emert Wyss thought he could make money in a Madison County class action lawsuit, but he accidentally sued himself instead. Now he has four law firms after his money - and he hired all four.

Ben Kepple has the chilling details here.

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Famed attorney Johnnie Cochran, perhaps best known for his defense of O.J. Simpson, died Tuesday afternoon after suffering from an inoperable brain tumor, his family said. He was 67.

This I did not know:

He passed the California bar in 1963, then took a job in Los Angeles as a deputy city attorney in the criminal division.

His career was intertwined with celebrities almost from its beginning: Among his early cases was a 1964 effort to prosecute comedian Lenny Bruce on obscenity charges.

If he does not stir, you must inter.

R.I.P., Johnnie.

According to my exhaustive research, Miming is a minor Norse forest god. The day we can't shout abuse at mimes is a sad day for freedom, if you ask me. Look what happened to this guy:

A German man has been arrested after a marriage guidance counsellor advised him to run around naked shouting at trees.

Dieter Braun, 43, from Recklinghausen said the stress release technique had worked perfectly until he was arrested.

He told police that venting his anger on the trees had stopped him shouting at his wife.

"If I didn't go to the woods and scream at the trees then my marriage would probably be over," he said.

He added taking his clothes off at the same time made him feel more relaxed.

"For me it's a type of relaxation therapy. Feeling the breeze on my naked skin really calms me down."

But local police said other visitors to the forest did not find his behaviour relaxing and have now charged him with causing a public nuisance.

As you may know, many people consider this the "go-to" blog for analysis of US Supreme Court decisions. As you may also know, many of these people are idiots, in that I rarely, if ever, do any analysis of US Supreme Court decisions. But they still come flocking back for my considered opinion. Idiots.

Bless 'em.

I do keep half an eye on what the SC is up to, though, because it's been my experience that each and every bad idea that comes out of the States shows up here ten years later, repackaged as some brilliant new Canadian initiative, just as the Americans are on the verge of ditching it.

So I was aware of the furor over Kelo v. City of New London, but mostly in the thought that this was a Bad Thing. I was aided in this perception by columnists such as Debra Saunders:

The city of New London, Conn., found itself in economic doldrums. Redevelopment was supposed to be the bromide. State and local officials created the New London Development Corp. That unelected entity decided to increase tax revenues by pushing middle-class families out of their waterfront homes and using eminent domain -- the other E.D. -- to make way for a revitalization project, anchored around a Pfizer Inc. research facility.

and George Will:

The question answered yesterday was: Can government profit by seizing the property of people of modest means and giving it to wealthy people who can pay more taxes than can be extracted from the original owners? The court answered yes.

Not to mention this from Horace Cooper, a professor at George Mason:

Reminding one more of the Queen of Heart's court in Alice in Wonderland rather than the highest court in our land, the Supreme Court ended its 2004-2005 term critically crippling the property rights of red state America while dramatically augmenting the rights of blue state America.

However, John Hinderaker of the Power Line blog argues that the decision is not a radical departure from the precedents covering eminent domain/takings law. Hinderaker (I believe) is himself a lawyer and presumably conversant with the issues. In the Weekly Standard a week ago he wrote:

MANY CRITICS of the Kelo decision have said that it authorizes seizing the property of one person merely to give it to another. Apart from any misunderstanding of Pfizer's role, this can only be because, once the NLDC acquires title to the Fort Trumble property, it will be conveyed to a developer, Boston's Corcoran Jennison, to carry out the project. Some hostility to the Kelo decision seems to be based on the belief that Corcoran Jennison may profit from its work--an odd concern, one might have thought, to be expressed by conservatives. But New London's use of a private developer highlights an important point: there is no doubt that the city (or the NLDC) could use its eminent domain power in support of the Fort Trumble project if it planned to retain ownership of the land and administer the project itself. If the project were publicly owned, no one could question that the associated condemnation proceedings would be in support of a "public use." But are the rights of Americans any less imperiled by condemnation in support of publicly-owned projects? And, as a matter of policy, if a city wants, for example, to create more housing, does it make any sense to force it to pursue the long-discredited practice of building public housing projects, rather than facilitating the use of private capital and private management to achieve the same end?

So, in conclusion: Kelo -- Good or Bad? Dunno. I suspect it has possibilities for abuses, but I'm not inclined to get as apoplectic about it as Prof. Cooper. Government and business working together is often a recipe for kickbacks and other corruption; but then, so too is government and public-service unions. Or for that matter, government by itself (see Ottawa, Canada).

This is what the Crusading Press supposedly lives to uncover, when it isn't just printing press releases from its favorite pet causes.

Hinderaker is the only person (that I've read) to point out that it's unfair to demonize Pfizer for this, when it was the city of New London who initiated the expropriation, in the hope that private business would seek to set up in that location.

I imagine it sucks equally to have your property seized for a privately-developed industrial park as it does to have it commandeered for an airport or highway interchange. It's one of those necessary evils, I guess -- it's difficult to imagine any kind of coherent society without the government having that power. About all you can hope for is that it will offer fair compensation for value.

In short, I suspect the grand Republic to the south will sputter along more-or-less successfully; what it means for Canada in the year 2015 is anyone's guess.

I'm going to be quite busy for the next five or six days -- I might make the occasional post, but I probably won't have much to say until next week.

Well, there oughta.

I'm just sayin'.

I see that the CBC has a new hobbyhorse that they're busy flogging to death. Poor pony!

I refer, of course, to the comments regarding judicial activism made by Conservative MP Maurice Vellacott on the weekend. If by some strange warp in the space-time continuum you haven't heard about it, Kate will get you up to speed here. (The secret of successful blogging -- spread the links around and also get other people to do the footwork for you.)

So I switched on the CBC Newsworld news at noon today to find out what's going on in the world. Apparently not much, because the first (and only) item discussed between reporter James Cudmore and the mopey-faced woman anchor was l'affaire Vellacott.

Seven minutes they banged on about this. Seven minutes. I know, because I timed it.

Here's a newsflash for you: Canadians aren't interested in this sort of inside baseball. They have no idea whom Maurice Vellacott is, any more than they cared about David Emerson's defection to the Conservatives; they're even less concerned about what the Canadian Bar Association thinks about either or both.

And as a note to Beverley McLachlin, whose huffy reaction to Vellacott's remarks kicked this all off: You know, there once was a quaint concept, pre-Charter, where politicians were loathe to criticize the judiciary, knowing that ethics and etiquette forbade the judges from public rebuttal. That equation changed when you and your legal cohorts decided to get in the game, expecting that your each and every pronouncement would be greeted with hosannas and palm fronds strewn in your path.

Sometimes it works out that way. Other times you get crucified.

If you can't stand the heat, Madam Justice, get back in the kitchen.

I remember reading some years ago that, besides institutional consumers like the police and military, the biggest private buyers of body armor in the U.S. were divorce lawyers and family-court judges. I've no idea where to look to check out that factoid, but it makes sense to me.

There was an odd coincidence of links that I ran across yesterday; though I suspect it is no mere synchronicity, but reflective of a deeper pattern.

The first was the Supreme Court's unanimous decision in Leskun v. Leskun:

The emotional consequences of a spouse's misconduct can be weighed by the courts when judging spousal support payments despite Canada's system of no-fault divorce, the nation's top court has ruled.

But the landmark decision from the Supreme Court of Canada on Wednesday stresses that misconduct alone is not a reason to financially support a wronged spouse.

"Misconduct, as such, is off the table as a relevant consideration,'' wrote Justice Ian Binnie. "Consequences (however) are not rendered irrelevant because of their genesis in the other spouse's misconduct."

Sheer sophistry. It's not an issue unless we can make it an issue, legislative word and intent be damned. The awestruck reporter went on to describe the decision as "highly nuanced," which well might be the case, to a J-school grad.

Here's how the courts decide such things: Court hears woman's side; court hears man's side. Court sides with woman. Nuanced enough for you? Try imagining the same verdict with the roles reversed. That doesn't take nuance. It takes powerful psychotropic drugs.

Barbara Kay wrote an excellent column -- not specifically about the Leskun case, but touching on the legal climate surrounding it -- in the National Post (I'm not sure how long the link will last, so I've taken the liberty of reprinting it in full in the extended post section):

The family law system is now systemically colonized by radical feminists. Their goal is the complete autonomy of women (except for financial support), via the incremental legal eclipse of men's influence over women's spheres of "identity" interests, which includes children. Thus the custody issue has become a front line in the gender wars.

By no means an exhaustive list, radical feminism is supported by collective rights-dominated law school curricula; feminism-riddled "cultural studies" and the humanities in general; women's studies departments, in reality feminist recruitment and networking centres/ideological boot camps; politically powerful, tax-funded feminist groups who extend strategic mentorship to a wide substratum of women's causes; supine prime ministers and go-with-the-zeitgeist justice ministers; and a critical mass of ideologically aggressive judges, whose juridical archives, bristling with subjective, gender-biased judgments, discredit their vocation and call into question the whole notion of equality under the law.

A few minutes later I ran across a link at A Welsh View titled something like "Wild Courthouse Shootout." I seldom click on items like that, but I had a hunch about it, and I was right. It stemmed from a family court dispute last year in Texas:

Tyler Police have confirmed two people outside the Smith County Courthouse have been killed after dozens of shots were fired starting just before 1:30 PM Thursday.

The two killed at the courthouse have now been identified: Maribel Estrada, the estranged wife of the alleged shooter, David Hernandez Arroyo, and citizen Mark Wilson. Wilson is licensed to carry a concealed weapon and fired several shots at Arroyo. Arroyo, however, was wearing a bulletproof vest.

Four other people were injured in the shooting. Those have been identified as a Tyler Police Detective, Two Smith County Sheriff's Deputies and Arroyo's son.

The Arroyos were at the courthouse for a child support hearing said Tyler Police Chief Gary Swindle.

Video here. Warning: Sounds and violence. There's no obvious gore, but there are scenes showing the dead and wounded and the gunman is killed by a police sniper as he attempts to escape.

Now, I don't know anything about this story beyond the news report and particularly can't say what was in the mind of the killer. It could have been that he was a timebomb set to go off at the slightest provocation.

It also could have been that he was driven over the edge by a relentless, corrupt machine dedicated to crushing him. (Family law in both Canada and the States is very similar.) I've read enough horror stories about men caught up in this Kafkaesque system to believe it could happen. Certainly someone who plans an armed attack in front of a courthouse isn't expressing great faith in the future.

Me, I've got no plans to test the hypothesis. I'm not married, have no children, and no desire to change in either regard.

Others might see things differently. So you stalwart Officers of the court might want to start checking out the price of Kevlar underwear.

Oops, I forgot: Private citizens in Canada are not allowed to possess body armor.

Pity, that.

Douglas Kmiec looks at the US Supreme Court's problematic Hamdan decision:

Ironically, to apply Geneva to al Qaeda in Hamdan the Court had to conclude that the present war is "not of an international character." To indulge the Court's conclusion requires more patience and suspension of belief than anyone should be asked to muster. Even if one was inclined to construe these rather clear words as referring to a conflict between a nation and a group of non-national radical Islamists rather than a conflict taking place in solely one nation (the President's wholly reasonable interpretation), the President's view, as a foreign affairs precedent, the separation of powers, and common sense, deserved to be credited.

As does the nimble-witted Mark Steyn:

The same kind of inspired jurisprudence conjuring trick that detected in the emanations of the penumbra how the Framers of the US Constitution cannily anticipated a need for partial-birth abortion and gay marriage has now effectively found a right to jihad -- or, if you're a female suicide bomber about to board an Israeli bus, a woman's right to Jews.

Reuters:

Women going on boozy nights out have been warned by police to "wear nice pants" in case they fall down drunk in the street.

A Suffolk police safety campaign magazine shows pictures of young women slumped on the ground next to messages urging them: "If you've got it, don't flaunt it."

"If you fall over or pass out, remember your skirt or dress may ride up," the magazine says. "You could show off more than you intended -- for all our sakes, please make sure you're wearing nice pants and that you've recently had a wax."

Ah, yes. When you're lying unconscious in a puddle of vomit in the alley, nothing says "unladylike" more than untrimmed shrubbery. You might attract men this way, but probably not the type you want to take home to the drunk tank to meet Mother.

And you'll have to get there by yourself. The cops have better things to do.

Captain's Quarters:

The ruling yesterday to forbid the President to continue his warrantless surveillance of international communications involving one party within the US seems likely to find resistance in the appellate court, not so much for its conclusion but for its emotional and mostly weightless reasoning. The Washington Post notes that legal scholars found themselves underwhelmed by the legal justifications of Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, and after reading the decision myself a couple of times, I'm glad to see that my reaction matched theirs:

It screams for an answer, but as far as I can see, I am the only one to raise the question. Judge Anna Diggs Taylor's ruling that the NSA's warrantless wiretaps are unconstitutional is drawing widespread ridicule from the commentariat. I leave it to others to debate the substantive issues. I, as usual, will address the overlooked:

Anna Diggs Taylor? Is that anything like Joanie Loves Chachi?

More to the point, how do I get this called to the attention of the fine folks at Digg?

The intrusion of harassment law into office politics can only make matters worse by poisoning relationships. Already there have been calls for yet more zero-tolerance anti-harassment codes, more policing of e-mails, more awareness training. At this rate, we might all soon be scared to talk to workmates, unless reading from a script approved by company lawyers.

Schools were the first to expand the definition of bullying to include such everyday playground issues as being shouted at or �excluded�. Now it is being imported into the adult worlds of the City - and even the Armed Forces.

Mick Hume looks at the worrying trend of using the courts and government to regulate any and all manner of personal conduct. If you wonder who's employing those otherwise unemployable psychology majors, wonder no more.

Update: Note the instant appearance of ads celebrating the phenomena. Buy short, sell long. Or something like that.

Reuters:

The leaders of a village in the Indian state of Rajasthan ordered 150 men to dip their hands into boiling oil to prove their innocence after food was stolen from a local school, a newspaper reported Sunday.

In late August the school's principal informed police that rice and wheat had disappeared but no action was taken, the Sunday Express said.

The council, or panchayat, of Ranpur village, 340 km (210 miles) south of state capital Jaipur, then decided to take the law into its own hands.

After 10 days spent trying to identify those responsible, it issued what the paper called the "medieval diktat."

The 150 men from Ranpur and two neighboring hamlets were told to pick a copper ring from a cauldron of boiling oil. The council elders then announced that the 50 who refused the order must be behind the crime. Many are now nursing their burns.

"We would have been ostracized had we refused. Out of fear all of us agreed. This is not the first time this has been done," said one 45-year-old man. He has now testified against the elders, who have been arrested.

A collection of crime reports that you see in (usually) small-town newspapers.

Even more intriguing is the item immediately below: "A kitten on Shaw Drive apparently has rectum" (cut off, but it looks like) "problems" and why exactly this should concern the police.

Via J-Walk Blog

Operator: 911 emergencies.
Boy: Yeah I need some help.
Operator: What's the matter?

The Toronto Star:

Ontario's top court is hearing that an alleged sexual assault victim should be allowed to testify wearing a niqab because she will still meet the defendants' eyes.

Lawyer David Butt acknowledges the court must balance the defendant's right to a full defence and his client's right to freedom of religion.

The two defendants - the woman's cousin and uncle - are charged with sexually assaulting the woman, identified only as N.S., when she was a child.

They argue that they must be able to assess her demeanour on the stand by seeing her face because it is critical to their right to defend themselves.

Butt is telling the Court of Appeal for Ontario that they will still be able to meet their accuser's eyes and that very little else would be gleaned from seeing the rest of her face.

There are a number of interveners in the case, including the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund [LEAF] , which argues that forcing the woman to remove her niqab would deter other such sex assault complainants from coming forward.

The brainless cud-chewers at LEAF might not be the stupidest herd of cattle to thunder over the cliff -- we'll always (it seems) have the Palestinians -- but it's a close call. First off, let's disabuse ourselves of the notion that the niqab is a religious requirement - it is mentioned nowhere in the Koran and only came to prominence at the turn of the early 20th century. It is more a political and cultural statement associated with the Muslim Brotherhood and the Saudi Wahhabi sect. Egypt saw fit to ban it in schools and universities just last year.

As for the identity of the complainant being revealed causing an inhibiting effect: I'm sure LEAF feels the accusation alone is enough to prove guilt. No need for the bother of a trial, or for the woman even to show up. All men are rapists, after all, and women never lie about such things. Except when they do.

But if you insist that your quaint customs be upheld in a Canadian courtroom, let's serve up the entire pig, shall we? (Apologies for the metaphor, which I'm certain you'll find quite unkosher.)

You accuse these men of rape? Bring forward your four (male, Muslim) witnesses to testify to your blemishless conduct.

No? I thought not, you filthy adultress.

Edmonton Journal:

A man who was killed in a weekend standoff with police allegedly came out of his house in darkness carrying an umbrella like a gun, then pointed it at police before being shot to death by an RCMP constable.

As investigators begin their probe into the police shooting death of Corey Lewis, a close family friend said he suspects Lewis saw no other way out of his predicament.

The husband of a town councillor, Lewis died at the hands of an RCMP constable when he left his Okotoks home in the early morning hours on Sunday after an armed standoff that began when police tried to arrest him on a report he had hit his teenage stepson.

Sure, it was only an umbrella; but what if he had one of those assault staplers?

Christie Blatchford:

This story emerged because one of Mr. King’s former clients - a black man who claims to have been deeply offended by Mr. King’s alleged obsessive interest in finding a black partner for his wife - broke a confidentiality agreement he’d signed, and for which he was paid $25,000 by Mr. King, ostensibly because the man feared this matter might have influenced some unrelated civil court actions he was involved in.

Oh, please. It looks to me far more likely that he realized he didn’t sufficiently shake down Mr. King at the time, and is merely putting a sheen of respectability on his own conduct. You know, like the CBC did.

CBC:

An advocacy group is criticizing an unusual decision by Edmonton police to release the name and photograph of a teenager accused of having unprotected sex without disclosing that she is HIV-positive.

"It makes you really sick to your stomach because you know that this is going to be following this young woman for the rest of her life," said Shelley Williams, the interim executive director of HIV Edmonton.

Well, what's the problem then? Surely this woman is going away for a long time, right? Right?

Johnson Aziga says he’s willing to take the blame — sort of — for killing two women and infecting at least five others through HIV transmission.

Aziga, 55, made the remarks during a rambling 45-minute statement in Ontario Superior Court on Tuesday, minutes after Mr. Justice Thomas Lofchik declared him a dangerous offender.

He is believed to be the first person in Canada convicted of murder through HIV transmission. The dangerous offender designation means he could be jailed indefinitely.

[. . .] Aziga, a divorced father of three and former research analyst with the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General, was found guilty in April 2009 of two counts of first-degree murder, 10 counts of aggravated sexual assault and one count of attempted aggravated sexual assault. His convictions concern times he didn’t tell sexual partners he knew he carried the virus that causes AIDS before having intercourse. Five of the women became infected, with two dying of AIDS-related cancers.

But don'tcha worry, girl. The Edmonton Journal's head sob sister, Paula Simons, has got yo' back.

So should we all breathe a sigh of relief? After all, an accused serial sexual assailant is now in custody.

But this case isn’t quite so simple.

The accused in this case is a slim 17-year-old girl, a minor, a child of the streets, who, according to police, lives without a fixed address in Old Strathcona.

She isn’t accused of forcing anyone to have sex against his will.

Instead, three unnamed men, whose identities are protected by the rape shield law, have complained to police that this girl had consensual sex with them without first disclosing the fact that she was allegedly HIV positive.

Now this isn't the usual case of "woman = good/man = bad," although a casual reader of the Journal might certainly jump to that conclusion.

Nope. Simons is a Professional Journalist©​, and thus incapable of such crude stereotyping. So it must be something else that she has discovered about this man . . . something . . . some nuance that is beyond simple folks like us . ..

every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

-- Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, first line, Chapter 1

Salt Lake Tribune:

Raised in a $1.5 million Barrington Hills, Ill., home by their attorney father, two grown children have spent the last two years pursuing a unique lawsuit against their mom for "bad mothering" that alleges damages caused when she failed to buy toys for one and sent another a birthday card he didn’t like.

The alleged offenses include failing to take her daughter to a car show, telling her then 7-year-old son to buckle his seat belt or she would contact police, "haggling" over the amount to spend on party dresses and calling her daughter at midnight to ask that she return home from celebrating homecoming.

Last week, at which point the court record stood about a foot tall, an Illinois appeals court dismissed the case, finding that none of the mother’s conduct was "extreme or outrageous." To rule in favor of her children, the court found, "could potentially open the floodgates to subject family childrearing to ... excessive judicial scrutiny and interference."

In 2009, the children, represented by three attorneys including their father, Steven A. Miner, sued their mother, Kimberly Garrity. Steven II, now 23, and his sister Kathryn, now 20, sought more than $50,000 for "emotional distress."

Miner and Garrity were married for a decade before she filed for divorce in 1995, records show.

Among the exhibits filed in the case is a birthday card Garrity sent her son, who in his lawsuit sought damages because the card was "inappropriate" and failed to include cash or a check. He also alleged she failed to send a card for years or, while he was in college, care packages.

On the front of the American Greetings card is a picture of tomatoes spread across a table that are indistinguishable except for one in the middle with craft-store googly eyes attached.

"Son I got you this Birthday card because it’s just like you ... different from all the rest!" the card reads. On the inside Garrity wrote "Have a great day! Love & Hugs, Mom xoxoxo."

Via Ace Of Spades HQ

Adam Graham:

With determination that would make Inspector Javert proud, federal prosecutors have the case set to go to trial on October 4th. The stakes could not be more significant. At issue is whether the fundamental right to self-defense allows people to protect their families from dangerous animals, or if such a high value is placed on an endangered species that human lives must only be in the greatest peril imaginable to justify a shooting.

Even if the federal government prevails, the prosecution of Jeremy Hill will most likely have results counterproductive to the stated goals of the Endangered Species Act. Families living in Grizzly Country, facing the same risks as Hill, will still act to protect their families. Given what has happened to Hill, one thing they won’t do is call the authorities. Had Hill not done this, he would not be facing the charge.

This would only become one more situation where the phrase “Shoot, shovel, and shut up” would be applied. When many farmers and ranchers find on their property a predator listed as an endangered or threatened species, to preserve their livelihoods and protect their families, they literally shoot the animal, bury the carcass, and say nothing.

The Jeremy Hill case should serve as a clarion call to reform the nearly four-decades-old Endangered Species Act. What Congress and the Interior Department have failed to recognize is that for the act to work effectively they need the buy-in of those who live in the same area as these species. That will not happen if the Endangered Species Act fails to provide reasonable protections for humans’ property and safety.

Whatever the verdict, the tone deaf prosecution has reinforced the feeling of many Americans living in the rural West: the federal government is as big of a menace to their livelihoods and safety as any beast in the forest.

(screenshot at link -- click to enlarge)

Big Journalism:

[Jimmy Hoffa Jr.] supporters have created a Facebook page on which they have posted the address of tea partier Justen Charters and are encouraging fellow Hoffa supporters to send human excrement through the federal mail system. Why? Because Charters came up with the idea to sent 1,000 tea bags to Jimmy Hoffa, Jr.

Earlier today I heard from progressive media types that Hoffa’s words were just rhetoric, “nothing will come of it.” Really?

Can progressives point to a comparable disgusting act organized by conservatives?

Is this what is to be expected when Americans dissent? Violence and being called a “son of a bitch” by a screechy fat cat union boss? How long will the NYT and other outlets continue to ignore this? Will progressives condemn it?

I wouldn't hold your breath on that one (though I would recommend it when opening certain packages with a Teamsters' metered postage stamp).

These people could be in for a rather unpleasant surprise, though. Human feces (or any feces, for that matter) are classed as a biohazard, and can only legally be shipped with appropriate packaging and labeling. I didn't have time to Google the appropriate legalese, but this summary from the University of Florida's Biological Safety Office outlines the possible consequences:

2. Penalties for violations -

Civil penalties $250 –$27,500 per violation per day

Criminal penalties (willful violations) up to $500K, 5 yr in jail

It would seem to me that this use would fall into the latter category and also (just guessing here) would usefully provide much DNA evidence.

And that's just for starters. An enterprising DA could surely hang a conspiracy rap on these bozos. Maybe even something terrorism-related.

Ottawa Citizen:

Styles isn't using your average rifle for his target-shooting. Instead, his firearms collection contains modern, sleek, semi-automatic rifles, which he says are light, accurate, durable and pleasing to shoot.

One of his preferred weapons is the Chinese-made M14 semi-automatic rifle. For years, it served as the standard-issue battle rifle for American soldiers and is now used by sharpshooters in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The M14, along with a range of much more modern rifles of military origin, is entirely legal to own in Canada, even if you're not in the military.

Some Canadians are alarmed that registered firearms users such as Styles have legal access to such weapons, which are considered "civilianized" models of modern military-assault rifles. Although these high-powered rifles are seldom used in crimes in Canada, many gun-control advocates want them banned in the name of public safety.

Meanwhile, many owners of these sophisticated weapons fear even if their firearms aren't banned, police may reclassify them as "prohibited" - a step close to a ban - then show up at their homes and seize their favourite toys.

Via SDA

CBC:

Paulson, officially sworn in Thursday as the RCMP's 23rd commissioner, said there will be "no presumption of innocence" in disciplinary proceedings involving abuse.

He said commanding officers can suspend officers engaged in "outrageous conduct" immediately, taking their badges and guns away, before a formal disciplinary process is launched.

Hey, Sluggo! Ever heard of that quaint concept known as "due process?" I can assure you that the ass-biting swamp of lawyers you're about to find yourself in have.

He also pledged to promote more female officers to the senior ranks of the RCMP.

And I'll bet half of them will be in full niqab drag. If the Mounties won't come to Mohammad . . .

Wonder how long until they're torturing people in the basement of Toronto Police Headquarters? I give it ten years.

It's much sexier.

Steve Sailer:

This whole brouhaha is basically the equivalent of a 1930s Stalinist show trial of "wreckers." The Five Year Plan not going as planned? Find some engineers to be blamed for throwing wrenches in their turbines out of spite. Blacks still shooting each other in large numbers? Find a Great White Defendant to play the symbolic role of Racist Wrecker. Of course, the whole thing rapidly turned into a fiasco with the GWD turning out to look like a cross between Barack Obama and Hugo Chavez, and the victim of profiling turning out to have a history of burglary.

Toronto Sun:

Vic Toews says public safety trumps the speedy return of convicted terrorist and murderer Omar Khadr to Canada.

Toews was responding Monday to Khadr sympathizers and lawyers who are crying foul over what they perceive is foot-dragging by Ottawa to let the killer serve the remainder of his eight-year sentence in Canada.

I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, let Omarette, the flamboyant young transsexual, back into this country!

I've heard he/she/it wants to be Grand Marshal -- bare-assed, with pom-poms -- of the next Toronto Pride Parade. Let's make this boy's (or whatever's) dream come true!

Big Government:

The most terrifying danger Americans face from a second Barack Obama term isn’t the economy, which is scary enough.

The most harrowing prospect is the Obama Administration’s passivity in the face of attempts to introduce aspects of sharia law into our legal system. Now there is strong and open evidence of the Obama administration collaborating with Islamist activists to ensure the path toward sharia law is accelerated.

Just last week, Thomas Perez, Assistant Attorney General of the Department of Justice (DOJ) Civil Rights Division, was asked this question by Trent Franks (R-AZ), a member of the House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution: "Will you tell us here today that this Administration's Department of Justice will never entertain or advance a proposal that criminalizes speech against any religion?"

Perez refused to answer. Four times.

And why would Franks target Perez?

Here’s why:

Simcoe.com:

Members of the PSAC union from Barrie and the surrounding are expected to fill a Greyhound bus heading to Toronto on September 15.

The bus riders will be participating in a mock trial against federal, provincial and municipal governments who appear to be hell bent on reducing services to their constituents, largely through job cuts.

The event, called The Peoples’ Court, will be staged outside the Toronto courthouse at 361 University Ave. beginning at 1 p.m.

An interesting term, "The Peoples' [sic] Court." I wonder if they're familiar with its etymology?

It's a bit of faux-populism, most often seen in regimes that grandly style themselves as a "Democratic Republic" of one sort or another -- a sure sign that they are neither democratic nor a republic.

The Soviet Union had a "People's Court," though it was oddly probably the most benign of them, sort of a cross between a Justice of the Peace and our courts of general jurisdiction, like Courts of Queen's Bench or District Courts in the U.S.

The German Volksgerichtshof was a far more sinister institution, under the control of the fanatical Nazi Roland Freisler, who in kind of a poetical way exited this world courtesy of an Allied bomb.

But we really shouldn't be surprised that they take their cues from totalitarians. I've been reading Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism, and it's startling to realize the depth of the man-crush the era's "progressives" had for Hitler and especially for Mussolini. (Hitler would fall out of favor later when he attacked Uncle Joe Biden Stalin, which was the most evil, ickiest thing evah, at least until Paris Hilton arrived.)

Sad to say, they don't seem to be getting any smarter.

Christie Blatchford:

To the astonishment of the judge, however, nothing of the sort happened with his first order.

CN served the right people — the chief of the Aamjiwnaang Chippewas of Sarnia, the band office and of course the Sarnia police.

Evidence at the continuation hearing showed that process servers and CN officials went to the blockade — there were never more than 50 protesters there, sometimes just a handful of people — and tried desperately “to engage” the Sarnia police.

One Sarnia staff-sergeant told a CN inspector that his force would not assist in serving the order. An inspector told him “their regular members have been directed not to attend at the blockade,” an order that I have confirmed independently. (Sarnia rank-and-file officers were told “there would be absolutely no enforcement, observation of, or engagement at any level.”)

In fact, one staff-sergeant, Jeff Hodgson, who stopped by the blockade did so only to join a circle of protesters who were drumming; the YouTube footage of that little exercise is still online.

The CN inspector was also told that Sarnia police “advised they would not accompany them to the blockade, but did provide a police radio.”

CN lawyers were back in court before Judge Brown on Dec. 27, on which occasion the force didn’t even bother to send anyone to appear.

“I must confess,” the judge said that day, “that I am shocked by such disrespect shown to this court by the Sarnia police.”

I've got the sure fire cure for these shenanigans. Henceforth, all welfare extortion "Just because you're so special!" payments will be transported exclusively by rail. That should take care of the natives.

And as the cops famously have little regard for the law these days but instead seem to look at it as their ticket to juicy, juicy salaries and pensions to kill for (And mirrored sunglasses! The top-of-the-line ones, the Ray-Bans!); well, those, too (Don't forget the shades!), will also be delivered strictly by railroad.

Those trains will be humming through as if Mussolini had taken over.

Lorne Gunter:

Once, after I’d written about the standoff at Caledonia, Ont. — in which a group of Mohawk squatters took over a subdivision, intimidated local residents, blockaded roads and assaulted police until the Ontario government bought them the subdivision and gave it to them — an aboriginal activist wrote to my editors insisting I didn’t understand the relationship between First Nations and the rest of Canada.

Aboriginals were not like other Canadians, she insisted. Their communities were not just ordinary communities. “We are like two canoes together in the same stream, each separate but sharing the same current.”

That may sound meaningful, even poetic, but it is largely rubbish.

If aboriginal and non-aboriginal Canadians are like two canoes, how come we non-aboriginals largely paid for both canoes and do most of the paddling in each, too?

All payments to Indian bands involved with this nonsense should cease. They are flagrantly flouting the agreements that they entered into when they signed those treaties, which specifically forbade them to interfere with commerce or the freedom of Canadians to travel and work. I see no reason why they should have a claim to taxpayers' dollars while they attempt to cripple our economy.

Breitbart:

(CBS) — The warmest day of the year so far brings hundreds of mischievous teens to Michigan Avenue. Police are calling it ‘mob action’. CBS 2 is learning about multiple incidents in at least four different locations along the Magnificent Mile and in the Gold Coast, yielding a slew of arrests. Things got pretty bad, very quickly with many innocent shoppers and tourists caught in the middle of a very chaotic situation. Hundreds of teens littered Michigan Avenue and State Street near Chicago. Things started to go bad around 6:00 p.m. Saturday, with teens purposely bumping into people, and causing fights among themselves. Fifteen juveniles and two adults were arrested and charged with Reckless Conduct— a misdemeanor. Community activist, Andrew Holmes witnessed some of the problems, while shopping with his family.

“You had a group of teens, close to maybe 500. They assaulted a Chicago police officer that was on a mounted on a horse and all of a sudden they assaulted a citizen walking the streets, just a normal citizen shopping and enjoying the weather,” said Holmes.

"Mischievous," CBS? Really?

Why those zany scallawags! What will the little rascals get up to next?

Next time you have "expert" Wendy Murphy on to opine about alleged rape cases (or other topics she knows nothing about, such as the Canadian legal system), maybe she'd be willing to expand on her Duke lacrosse team/Mike Nifong pronouncements.