Your Daily Nazi: Important News On Your Ward News

I wrote last year:

So there's an T.O. East End Newspaper called Your Ward News.  From what I gather its mostly a direct mail affair; the publisher, a guy named Leroy St. Germaine, has Canada Post deliver it to folks down in Ward 31 (The Beaches).  It has apparently always been a bit flaky/racist, but the last couple of issues have seen a guy named James Sears gradually taking over, until recently he was appointed "Editor in Chief". And he has taken the publication "Full Nazi": articles promoting holocaust denial by old Heritage Front members; articles praising Adolf Hitler; articles promoting "white pride". The works.

Since then various people have taken various actions to make these guys stop publishing or get Canada Post to stop delivering them.  For example, local businesses advertising in the paper were contacted and asked to pull their classifieds.  This worked, more or less;  Sold space within the publication has declined.  But Your Ward has continued, and Canada Post has continued to distribute it.

Last week Canadian Civil Rights lawyer Richard Warman filed a human rights complaint against Canada Post, supported by numerous other luminaries.   You can find the actual paperwork at WK's place through the last link.  My favorite bit from it is:

It looks better if you click on the image, I think.

Anyway, this may be an interesting lesson in how to file this kind of complaint after the repeal of Section 13 of the CHRA.  Lets do a quick walk-through of the sections invoked.

Section 5:

5 It is a discriminatory practice in the provision of goods, services, facilities or accommodation customarily available to the general public

(a) to deny, or to deny access to, any such good, service, facility or accommodation to any individual, or

(b) to differentiate adversely in relation to any individual,

on a prohibited ground of discrimination.

This is invoked, as I understand it, to cover the discriminatory treatment of members of the public who are forced to receive the hate mail in question.

Section 7:

7 It is a discriminatory practice, directly or indirectly,

(a) to refuse to employ or continue to employ any individual, or

(b) in the course of employment, to differentiate adversely in relation to an employee,

on a prohibited ground of discrimination.


1976-77, c. 33, s. 7; 1980-81-82-83, c. 143, s. 3(F).

This suggests an infringement on the rights of the letter carriers forced to deliver the hate-mail.  It's worth noting that CUPW supports Warman's complaint.

Sections 12 & 14:

12 It is a discriminatory practice to publish or display before the public or to cause to be published or displayed before the public any notice, sign, symbol, emblem or other representation that

(a) expresses or implies discrimination or an intention to discriminate, or

(b) incites or is calculated to incite others to discriminate

if the discrimination expressed or implied, intended to be expressed or implied or incited or calculated to be incited would otherwise, if engaged in, be a discriminatory practice described in any of sections 5 to 11 or in section 14.

1976-77, c. 33, s. 12; 1980-81-82-83, c. 143, s. 6.

&:

14 (1) It is a discriminatory practice,

(a) in the provision of goods, services, facilities or accommodation customarily available to the general public,

(b) in the provision of commercial premises or residential accommodation, or

(c) in matters related to employment,

to harass an individual on a prohibited ground of discrimination.

12 concerns discriminatory notices.  If you are willing to publish/distribute this level of anti-semitic, anti-black, anti-whatever hate, its basically indicating to the people you deliver it to that you will likely discriminate and that they should too.

And, again, he various subsections of 14 cover discriminating against those members of the public who receive and must deliver this hate literature.

*

So it will be interesting to see how this all plays out, in the absence of the now repealed Section 13 of the CHRA.  Richard does not instigate frivolous complaints.  As for Your Ward, finding the on-line version is easy enough if you want to take a look.

I imagine getting it delivered to your mailbox is like recieving uncovered, unsolicited pornography (indeed some of the images in the publication shade towards porn).  Its basically a sick joke being played by a few white supremicists on the folks down in The Beaches.  Hopefully this will put an end to it.

Some News Re Dr. Dawg/John Baglow

This happened yesterday:

John Baglow — a former vice-president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada — was taken to hospital on a stretcher Thursday afternoon from his Simcoe Street home with stab wounds to his hands and head. He was in stable condition.

Last I've heard, John has spoken to a couple of people in the blogging world and everyone involved in the incident will be OK.  That's very good news.  John is a class act: good to argue with over the finer points of The Dialectic; good to drink beers with.  Here's hoping he and his partner and step-son have a full and complete recovery.

Federal NDPer Defects To OLP

OTTAWA — One of the federal NDP’s former rising stars has decided she wants to run for the provincial Liberals in Ontario.

Good luck to her.  And it shows that Wynne's OLP is still attracting talent, so good news for them too whether she wins that nomination or not.

And, yes, she is still hot.

A Brief Note On Kale: Is It Even Food?

I tried some Kale "chips" today at Longos.  They were awful, as though somebody had cut up a black garbage bag, battered and then deep-fried it.  Like spinach, in other words, but with spinach's one or two nice flavor notes removed and drops of "this-taste-like-such-shit-the-hippies-will-think-its-good-for- them" juice slathered over.  And it made me wonder: is this some kind of conspiracy to fool health conscious progressives into eating garbage, or has years of talking on cell-phones caused people's tongues to mutate until they're actually able to consume and enjoy industrial waste?  I mean this crap can't really be healthy, can it?

PS.  Longos also had free pizza today, which was quite good.

Ezzrata: When Ezra Levant Was Young And Sue-y

Someone has posted a trove of legal documents from Ezra Levant's past, related to a libel case he brought against the University of Calgary student newspaper, back in the day.  Human rights lawyer Richard Warman has posted some commentary re this case on his website.  Here I'm just copping my favorite bits:

– 28 April 1993 – Ezra Levant swears an affidavit in which he says a Gauntlet reporter named Arnold Nowicki called him names in the University of Calgary bookstore, that “the said remarks can cause irreparable damage to the Plaintiffs’ reputations” given the comments were in a public place, and that the Plaintiffs therefore needed an injunction against Arnold Nowicki and everyone at the Gauntlet from “making any comment about the Plaintiffs”. Ezra Levant says Arnold Nowicki called him the following names:

low lifes

assholes

bullshits

that we get kicks out of intimidating people

nasty

motivated by revenge

that we beat up on people

– 3 May 1993 – Ezra Levant obtains a complete injunction on an ex-parte, emergency basis to prevent any Gauntlet staff member from making “any comment or statement about the Plaintiffs or any of them.”

There's more through the link, and other edifying material on various topics.  You may judge how this effects Ezra's status as a free speech warrior.

On Marie Heinen: A Brief Note

If one person came out the whole Ghomeshi mess unsoiled it was Marie Heinen.  Now stupid journalists are asking her if she thinks she's betrayed the sisterhood and other such nonsense.  She shouldn't have to answer.  It isn't her fault that the crown witnesses all went up in flames, or that the crown's attorneys stood around like a bunch of gormless boobs watching their barn burn down.  And I'll tell you something: if I got in trouble and had the $, her law firm (Henein and Associates) would be the first name on my lips.  And if I was a First Nation's rep I would be after her to expand out into land-claims.  And if I was Greenpeace I'd try and get her to do bro bono work on behalf of the whales. She is the only one of the entire crew around that trial who seemed to know what her job was and how to do it.  The rest of the cast--the activists, the crown lawyers, the witnesses themselves. I wouldn't trust them to organize a fist-fight at an Irish wedding.

On Sunday Mornings: A Brief Note

Whoever stuck those "play me pianos" in local community centers, where they can be plinked away at by small children with 0 in the way of musical talent at 7 AM on a Sunday, should be clubbed to death with a goalie stick.  And the children should be punished, too.  Instead of being allowed to run and jump and play, they should be forced to take piano lessons.  Stupid children.  Stupid Sunday.

Ezra Levant's Hearing Before Alberta Law Society Has Been...

...postponed while they consider his application to resign.  Sounds like he wants to swing a trade; he'll quit if he exits with a clean slate.  In the end, though, he won't be able to say he's a lawyer anymore, and he won't be able to make $ from it.  Good either way?

On That Motion Condemning The BDS Movement

...supported by the CPC and most of the LPC (some dissented, and some more didn't show for the vote); opposed by the NDP; and therefore ultimately adopted...It's a stupid thing. Anti-free speech, maybe.  Anti-Democracy, Anti-Capitalist, I'd even argue.  Telling you that you are bad if you have made certain decisions about how you spend your money; and that its bad to try and change things by directing your consumer choices one way or another.  I don't think the BDS movement is inherently anti-semitic, although I am sure some anti-semites find it a convenient method of legitimizing their hate.  But even if it were, I'd probably argue that its OK to be racist with your money; or at least that you have an absolute right to be racist with your money.  You want to protest the homosexual agenda and be clean in my books, then go boycott Disneyland (*).  Its a free country, and you express that freedom through your money.

But the thing is, the HOC just passed a motion.  Just a statement of condemnation.  Everyone in support might as well have dropped their pants and farted in the direction of McGill.  It would have had a similar practical effect, meaning none.  So it isn't really something to get too worked up over. Nobody is going to, because nobody can, force you to buy Israeli wine, or to stop you from trying to convince others that they too should avoid buying Israeli wine.

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(*)  Its been tried, incidentally.  It didn't really work.

Josh Gelernter, Science-y Type Guy

He writes, bitching about The Left, Science, The Earth Centered Universe, Climate Change, and all that:

People tend to think that proponents of an Earth-centered solar system were nothing but intransigent religious fanatics. In fact, they included scientists of Galileo-level genius, like Ptolemy and Aristotle. When their theories were weakened and their opponents’ strengthened, they switched sides — and the “scientific consensus” changed.

From wiki:

Aristotle, 384–322 BC
Claudius Ptolemy, c. AD 100 – c. 170
Galileo Galilei,  15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642

Aristotle and Ptolemy couldn't "change sides", Josh.  They'd been dead over a thousand years.

Exclusive: Slowly Dying Media Continues To Slowly DIe!

From Toronto Sun Family blog:

Layoffs over at 333 King today. 3 advertising coordinators, and I'm sure there will be more to come before the big move to the National Post building.

PS.  The new NP "building" isn't really so much a building as a tent city on the banks of The Don River. The reporters who are left file from a nearby Tim Hortons, using the complimentary wifi there, and pee into the river itself, which is why nothing can live in The Don.

Ezra Levant, The Alberta NDP, And Journosplaining

I guess I should say something about this.  Alberta's NDP government decided they weren't willing to put up with any more disruptions out of kooks from The Rebel (the online HQ of Ezra Levant's personal death cult), and kicked them out of one of their press conferences.  They're rationale was that Ezra was, in his own words, "not a journalist".  Of course, when the real journos heard about this, they collectively shat, and rushed to our lads defense. Not like rational men.  Like Pavlov the dog drooling at his master's bell.  Like chimps chasing a stray banana.

And their arguments were quite silly. There's apparently no way to tell who is a journalist and who isn't; also, its important to allow even bad journalism.  Imagine if someone had applied this line of thinking to cars.  How can we really know which cars are safe?  But we must allow even shitty cars!

But of course nobody making these arguments believes them for one second.  What real media outlet would be willing to hire Ezra Levant after all those lost libel cases?  Let alone the nine-tooth yobos that make up the "contributors" to his cult newsletter.

Theoretically, though, a news outlet is supposed to accept as a journalist anyone who shows up on the front step with a pencil and a notepad.

The fact is, we regulate pork, we regulate cheese, we regulate guns, we can certainly regulate words; we can eliminate whatever kind of talk we think demeans the public discourse in the same way we've eliminated spitting on the floor.  When journos tell you you shouldn't regulate them discount what they say and get to the root, in the same way you would if you were listening to a herring fisherman bitching about new regs on the herring fishery.  "As the herring fishery goes, so goes the nation!  If you destroy the herring fishery, then you will be the ones who suffer!!!"  And etc.

And the thing with the MSM and Ezra, they're not defending him because its a free speech thing. They defend him because accept him as being one of the family, the slow cousin in the basement that they can feel superior too and occasionally decide he's really got a dabble of wisdom in him in his own thuggish way, even if they've seen him eating live baby squirrels or running naked through the woods at night.

Or maybe its like they've been stuck with him so long they've all got a version of Stockholm's Syndrome.

And about this journosplaining nonsense.  Please, journalists, when arguing this issue don't whip out the few lines your remember from On Liberty, or Mencken, or that book by John Milton with the name that sounds like a piece of gym equipment, as though folks on the other side of the issue didn't read them in college 30 years ago and weren't impressed.  D'you know that Mill's arguments for absolute Freedom of Speech rely on the purest form of truth relativism?  We can't deny Ezra's droolers whatever because, who knows, we can't know they're wrong about the ROMA being sub-human.

Or do you (journalists) spout these lines like you're dropping little semantics turds that sound nice but which  you don't know the meaning of.  In either case, it is insulting.  Stop it.

Breakfast At Longos

This morning their store on 7 near Woodbine had a wonderful sample spread.  The highlight was surely their pulled pork floating on delicious smoked Oka cheese set atop Nachos.  Runner up was a yummy smooth avocado spread, also on Nachos.  And they were serving "popcorn chips", which I shied away from, having already given myself salt poisoning once this week.  (It's a long story, but you really can eat too much Italian sausage).  And for dessert they had Jelly donuts.  My only complaints are that their awesome prosciutto pizza had been pulled from the menu, they weren't giving out chunks of artisanal bread, and the cake was a little dry.

So a very solid 7 of 10.

Energy East, Once Again

DeSmog Blog has a guest post on the Energy East pipeline.  I am a huge fan of DeSmog, but I think this post is wrong-headed and ultimately counterproductive.  Because it is, at bottom, an a priori rejection of the project before it even goes through a newly revamped ie toughened NEB process that now explicitly considers "upstream emissions".  My view is if it goes through the process successfully then, in the absence of legal action by the First Nations along its route, it should be given federal approval.

You have to think of this as the first step in a process.  Carbon is priced in Phase 1, and then in phases 2, 3, 4, and so on, that price is gradually ratcheted up.  Alberta has been told that, if it cleans up its act and gets with Phase 1, it will be given a chance to send its oil to the larger world market, where it might fetch a better price.  And so, at some political cost to the ruling government and economic cost to the province itself, it has attempted to do right.

So how do you then get a buy-in on phase 2, 3 and etc. if this good behaviour is not rewarded somehow?  If  no action the province takes will be rewarded why bother doing anything in future? So do we achieve our ultimate goal (hitting our announced carbon reduction targets) more quickly through cooperating or trying to steam-roll a whole industry out of business?

Life In Scarborough: Goodbye, Old Car!

So I finally pulled the plug on my '97 Cavalier yesterday afternoon.   I feel OK about it.  I'd put a new engine in last February and hoped this would squeeze a few more years out of the thing.  But it was like sewing a shiny fresh metal heart to a bunch of rusty old organs.  It shook them to bits with its vigor.  Everything ancillary has failed over the past six months.  I finally told Crappy Tire to pull the plug at noon on Sunday. and an hour later when I was driving by in my emergency rental I saw a tow-truck hauling it off to automobile heaven.  Bye bye old car!  I won't miss a CD -player where you had to open the trunk to change CDs.  I won't miss the pain in my guts from thinking that this drive might be the one where the car failed somewhere in the 905 area code, where rural primitives allegedly still raise "pigs" and "cows", and occasionally eat city folks whose cars have stalled.  My one regret is that I never managed to have sex in the car while it was being pulled through one of those automated car-washes.  I could have managed the timing (about two minutes), but the interior was too cramped to really get set up.  And it would have been better to have someone in the car with me.  But otherwise onward and upward!  A new previously owned vehicle is in my future!  This one may even have an MP3 player, or at least a working air-conditioner.

Give Alberta Energy East

Sure they're loud-mouthed cowboys.  Sure their cities are crap-holes where the streets all go one-way... to nowhere.  Sure their hockey teams have done fuck all for the nation over the last couple of decades.  Sure they boast about all the money they send East while at the same time grovelling for Ottawa infrastructure $s  because their tar-mines are all going TU.  Which indicates a distinct lack of couth.  Sure they  inflicted Ezra Levant on the county.  Sure they each own a spare gold-plated cowboy that they can melt down to pay the bills when times are tough.  

But under Notley's NDP they have instituted a carbon tax. They're at least TRYING to act normal.  I say give 'em the one pipeline (which, after all, is there already and only in need of fiddling with to make the project work) and then tell 'em to go pound salt re the others and feel righteous about it. 

Charlie Hebdo: Martyrs For Crap, Part Duh

Disgusting cartoon in Charlie Hebdo ("what would've become of Aylan had he grown up? A groper") via @faizaz pic.twitter.com/iB4myFb1ke

— Sunny Hundal (@sunny_hundal) January 13, 2016

Part 1 here. 

O'Leary For CPoC Leader?

@Bigcitylib2 ding ding.

— Rosemary Barton (@RosieBarton) January 13, 2016

It actually makes sense if you think about it.  The rest of the field sure ain't making anyone's heart beat any faster.  This  may be the year of the crass rich guy, with strange/no hair.  And the funny thing is: it would make Rob Ford the most influential politician of the young millennium. Guys like Trump and (maybe eventual Prime Minister) O'Leary have surely studied him to see how far the limits could be stretched.  Rob Ford took the Overton Window and fucking ate it raw.  It's his world now; we just rent from him.

FPTP Or Not FPTP?

I don't mind the Cullen/Coyne option, where we adopt a new system, have one election under it to see how we like it, and then have a referendum, where going back to pure FPTP is one of the options.

Personally, I like better the idea of ratifying a newly chosen system via referendum before the next election, but where pure FPTP is not one of the options.  After all, the specific campaign promise was that the system would change from the status quo.  Into what was left open.

But thinking ahead a bit, I rather like the Scottish way,   Here some candidates are  elected via FPTP, with additional members chosen from lists compiled in advance by the parties.  Some, like Colby Cosh, find this undemocratic.  But regard the American example a moment; the POTUS can choose anyone for his cabinet; that's how he winds up with the best and brightest working for him.  Whereas in Canada whenever Conservatives in power you wind up with chiropractors running the Ministry of Science because they won a nomination in a safe riding.

So your "list" would be where you could keep your "star" candidates, the talented but not necessarily sociable.  There would be no reason anymore to parachute them into a hostile riding; no reason for them to pretend to like cod tongues or wear a cowboy hat at some stupid farm show.

Whether or not it has worked out like this in Scotland, I have no idea.  Finding out would require research.

Although I would note from this that some folk over there are still bitching.

Longos, At Night

I have written about Longos most permissive and excellent samples policy here.

The problem is they stop giving out samples sometime after 4 PM.  Yet people come in after 4 and there are NO SAMPLES and they are HUNGRY!!!  They might be walking around thinking HEY THAT LOOKS GOOD IF I JUST HAD A SAMPLE FOR VERIFICATION PURPOSES I JUST MIGHT buy IT!!!  Or they might be looking to stuff their faces.  But whatever.  THESE PEoPlle Are Hungary!!!!  So I think I've spotted a gap in Longo's business model.  So I'm going to tell them about it.  And in doing so I am NOT JUST MOOCHING!!  I am helping to perfect GLOBAL MOTHERFUCKING CAPITALISM!Of which whom among us does not love?