Attitudes Haven't Changed...

Globe editorial

A university fails in its mission

Universities have an obligation to protect the free exchange of ideas on campus. Today it is Ann Coulter being silenced. Who will it be tomorrow? Mar 26, 2010 12:15PM EDT

Not High On My List Either....

No UFC in Ontario: McGuinty

By ANTONELLA ARTUSO, Queen's Park Bureau Chief

One Possible Reason We Don't Own The Podium

 

Gary Clement on hot dog safety

Posted: February 24, 2010, 2:31 AM by Daniel Kaszor

 

Today Gary Clement weights in on the great hot dog controversy: 

Possibly Time For Us To Stop Bitching...

Is It Treason To Carry A Pencil?

Happy DUE Year

Bitch, Bitch, Bitch.....

'The terrorists don't have to blow us out of the sky to assume a win'

Editors pick readers' most insightful online comments Dec 28, 2009

Kelly McParland: Thanks mad bomber. Thanks a lot.

Posted: December 28, 2009, 9:23 AM by NP Editor
Filed under: Full Comment,Kelly McParland

Predictably, the reaction of security authorities to the Nigerian man who attempted to blow up a passenger plan landing in Detroit (we're just going to dispense with the "allegedlys" here, if you don't mind) is to make life as miserable as possible for all the people who didn't try to blow up a plane on Christmas morning.

They missed a guy from Nigeria, who was so radicalized that his own father grew frightened about his intentions and notified U.S. authorities. So everyone else has to suffer: old ladies, mothers with babies, students, families on their way to a holiday. Wailing kids are forced to stand around uselessly in a mob of frustrated travellers in a boring airport just so the security people can make a show of how careful they're being, just in case that grandfather from Bute turns out to be an Al-Qaeda mad bomber in disguise. Folks are needlessly humiliated, forced to pry open their bags on the airport floor, dragging out their carefully packed clothes and toiletries, jamming stuff from one suitcase into another to please the new, arbitrary regulations adopted in a panic by a security apparatus in a high state of embarrassment.

Click here to read more...

David Asper: Learn a lesson from Israel on airport security

Your Children, Grandchildren, Etc. Will Be Members Also

Get ready for Generation T

We're largely familiar with Generation X and Generation Y. But perhaps it is time to brace for the emergence of another generation in the United States...

OMG, how obsolete am I?

The problem with trying to sound like you're still with it is that you're bound to make an idiot of yourself

The Decade Reality Check

Editing Their Constitution

FESTIVUS Is Becoming A Reality

Gerry Raps Up The Week

Gary Clement's Week in Review: Dec. 13 to Dec. 19 , 2009

The Real Villian!

Irresponsible animal owners.........

Attacking the THS stinks of a witchhunt

By PETER WORTHINGTON

Cruelty, conspiracy and obstruction charges against five senior people at the Toronto Humane Society, with possible charges against the 14-member board of directors, has a feeling of vendetta, if not a lynch mob.

Of course, none of us yet know details, but what is known is the Ontario SPCA, even when it was called the Ontario Humane Society, has a long record of hostility towards the THS.

Marching key officials out in handcuffs -- president Tim Trow, general manger Gary McCracken, chief veterinarian Steve Sheridan, shelter supervisor Andy Bechtel and manager Romeo Bernadino -- seems a bit much, even unnecessary.

All this done under the OSPCA Act, which some think gives excessive police powers to the OSPCA which, curiously, doesn't allow its membership a vote in choosing directors, and has few constraints.

Ironically, the charges come just after the THS publicly urged the minister of municipal affairs and housing to review the municipal act so as to improve the way animal control and shelter services are run.

Under the Freedom of Information Act the THS compared its 7% euthanasia rate to the average 51% euthanasia rate across the province, which it found "shocking and disturbing".

The THS says 75% of the 7,645 cats and dogs admitted last year were adopted out.

The OSPCA charges against Trow and the others are that they kept animals alive in cages without water and food that were too sick to recover, and should have been mercifully put down.

Trow as well as senior communicator Ian McConachie both are adamant that euthanasia is a decision the vet makes, not management.

No question that there are philosophical differences in how the THS and OSPCA regard their respective mandates. Up until now, Steve Sheridan has had a stellar reputation as a veterinarian, with some 40 years of treating animals.

Usually, veterinarians do not question one another, but the OSPCA has departed from this format.

WON'T KILL ANIMALS

One of the areas of dispute with Trow's THS leadership is his reluctance to kill animals -- witness his refusal to kill Bandit, the pit bull that attacked a child and the court ordered put down in 2003.

Instead, Trow kept it in his office. Bandit is likely now headed for the chop.

Trow is a controversial person. That he loves animals and is reluctant to kill them is indisputable, as is his leadership style which can be awkward and contentious.

Personally, I sometimes feel more committed to animals than to people, but I had difficulty when Trow once said he was interested in a scheme of birth control for rabbits. He was even reluctant to kill mice at the THS building, preferring to trap them for release elsewhere.

Trow might well keep animals alive longer than I would, but "cruelty" is not an apt description -- and certainly not for Dr. Sheridan or others charged.

On the positive side, under Trow's leadership the THS introduced a grassy fenced area for dogs to romp, plus a volunteer program to take dogs out for walks, plus a foster care program, and a kitten nursery, and a raccoon motel.

By keeping open around the clock, every day of the year, the THS serves the community more conscientiously than, say, the Toronto Animal Services (which replaced the THS as a pound) which often has no dogs or cats available for adoption, but euthanizes 45% of those it admits.

The THS story is not over yet, but the acrimony unleashed indicates that both the THS and OSPCA need an independent assessment -- even forensic audit -- if, indeed, needy animals are going to be served the way they deserve.

Hail Oprah!

It Is A Tough, Tough World Out There.....

....ask the single mom trying to keep a roof over her head and food on the table, or the family where mom and pop work two or three jobs to survive and keep their kids off the street, etc.

Street kids' toughness only skin deep

By Carol Goar

A young, able-bodied panhandler asks you for spare change. Unless you're remarkably non-judgmental, your first thought is: Why doesn't this kid get a job or go to school or at least do something useful?

More Kudos For HSC

Goar: Hospital discovers sick children need a legal cure

November 20, 2009

Carol Goar

It came as a surprise, even to the director of social work at Sick Kids hospital, that 56 per cent of the children admitted to Canada's largest pediatric health institution are from low-income families. These youngsters account for 65 per cent of patient deaths.

Ted McNeill knew poverty carried health risks, but he didn't expect the evidence to be so stark. "Everyday we see children who are affected by non-medical issues such as inadequate housing and nutrition and families facing financial challenges and immigration issues," he said. "These social determinants of health are the framework that organizes our thinking."

The hospital provides an array of services to families in need: counselling and support; referrals to social service agencies; help navigating the health-care system, and transit fare to bring their kids to follow-up appointments. But there are problems – education barriers, tax disputes, immigration hurdles, employment issues and battles with payday lenders – that lie beyond the scope of social workers.

That is why Sick Kids is launching Canada's first on-site legal service for patients and their families. Pro Bono Law Ontario, a charity that arranges free legal services for people of limited means, is providing the lawyers.

The official kickoff was Thursday. But the real work began last May, when a pilot version of the program was put in place. It has already handled approximately 200 cases.

"Legal assistance is often the last thing on a family's mind," said Lee Ann Chapman, the hospital's bedside lawyer. She can provide advice, notarize documents and help parents apply for legal aid, if they meet the eligibility criteria. (Many don't. To qualify, a single parent's income must be below $12,900 a year. A two-parent family's income must be less than $13,644 annually.)

But Chapman can't take on complex, time-consuming cases. That is where the pro bono lawyers step in. Here are a few of the problems they have resolved:

• A school board administrator refused to allow a student receiving dialysis to attend regular classes on non-treatment days and use Sick Kids' school during hospitals stays, arguing that would constitute "double dipping." An education lawyer got that policy changed.
• A tax official turned down a Waterloo couple's claim for a medical tax credit to defray the $12,000 they spent to be at their daughter's bedside at Sick Kids as she battled a rare form of congenital heart disease. A tax lawyer got the ruling reversed.
• An immigration officer blocked attempts by a couple from China to bring in a child's grandmother for support, while the gravely ill youngster underwent treatment at Sick Kids. An immigration lawyer got her admitted to the country.

Based on the preliminary phase of the program, Chapman estimates the Family Legal Health Program will get 400 to 500 requests for legal assistance a year.

The initiative was the brainchild of Len Ricchetti, a lawyer at McMillan LLP (now an Ontario Superior Court judge). He attended a conference in the United States, where he heard Barry Zuckerman, founder of his country's Medical-Legal Partnership. The Boston pediatrician made a powerful case that medical intervention has limited effectiveness if a child goes home to a frigid apartment, doesn't have enough to eat, can't look forward to going to school or lives in fear of domestic violence.

Sixteen year ago, Zuckerman brought legal advocates into Boston Medical Centre. Since then, more than 160 American hospitals have followed suit.

Now the program has taken root in Toronto. McNeill and his colleagues spent a couple of years adapting it to a Canadian setting. They are not sure they have all the details right. But they are certain Sick Kids has a powerful new tool to help vulnerable children.

Anyone Surprised?

Only ourselves to blame......apathy seems to be a genetic trait and it starts with the pathetic turnout for elections and you need to get a permit to protest and those permits are issued by the same people that tend to piss you off in the first place.

Consumers lose in TV/cable war

By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN

Canadian consumers cannot win in the showdown between television broadcasters and the cable/satellite industry.

Making Technology Affordable For The Masses

Look around your home! Look in your kids's room! How many items could you afford if they had been made in Ontario, California, etc.

Special report: Silicon Sweatshops

Despite strict "codes of conduct," labor rights violations are the norm at factories making the world's favorite high-tech gadgets.

• Silicon Sweatshops: Shattered dreams

• Silicon Sweatshops: Disposable workforce

• Silicon Sweatshops: The China connection

• What do you think about Silicon Sweatshops?

HGTV In Space

The Chinks In Diversity Armor....

Chris Selley: The mind of the ex-jihadi

Posted: November 16, 2009, 4:55 PM by NP Editor
Filed under: Canadian politics,Full Pundit,Chris Selley

Read more: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/default.aspx#ixzz0X79IaJy8
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...and we have seen examples.

Chris Selley: The mind of the ex-jihadi
Posted: November 16, 2009, 4:55 PM by NP Editor

The Independent's Johann Hari on Britain's apostate Islamists:

From the right, there was the brutal nativist cry of "Go back where you came from!" But from the left, there was its mirror-image: a gooey multicultural sense that immigrants didn't want liberal democratic values and should be exempted from them. Again and again, they described how at school they were treated as "the funny foreign child", and told to "explain their customs" to the class. It patronised them into alienation.

"Nobody ever said — you're equal to us, you're one of us, and we'll hold you to the same standards," says [Ed] Husain. "Nobody had the courage to stand up for liberal democracy without qualms. When people like us at [Newham] College were holding events against women and against gay people, where were our college principals and teachers, challenging us?"

Without an identity, they created their own. It was fierce and pure and violent, and it admitted no doubt.

Canada has neither a violent racist problem nor an Islamist extremist problem to anything like the extent Britain does — but it certainly has a gooey multiculturalism problem, however benign or malignant one considers it. In any event, Hari offers the clearest glimpse I've ever come across as to what turns British schoolboys — or Australian or American or Canadian schoolboys, potentially — into jihadists. It's incredibly compelling stuff.

National Post
cselley@nationalpost.com

Chris Selley: The mind of the ex-jihadi

Posted: November 16, 2009, 4:55 PM by NP Editor
Filed under: Canadian politics,Full Pundit,Chris Selley

The Independent's Johann Hari on Britain's apostate Islamists:

From the right, there was the brutal nativist cry of "Go back where you came from!" But from the left, there was its mirror-image: a gooey multicultural sense that immigrants didn't want liberal democratic values and should be exempted from them. Again and again, they described how at school they were treated as "the funny foreign child", and told to "explain their customs" to the class. It patronised them into alienation.

"Nobody ever said — you're equal to us, you're one of us, and we'll hold you to the same standards," says [Ed] Husain. "Nobody had the courage to stand up for liberal democracy without qualms. When people like us at [Newham] College were holding events against women and against gay people, where were our college principals and teachers, challenging us?"

Without an identity, they created their own. It was fierce and pure and violent, and it admitted no doubt.

Canada has neither a violent racist problem nor an Islamist extremist problem to anything like the extent Britain does — but it certainly has a gooey multiculturalism problem, however benign or malignant one considers it. In any event, Hari offers the clearest glimpse I've ever come across as to what turns British schoolboys — or Australian or American or Canadian schoolboys, potentially — into jihadists. It's incredibly compelling stuff.

National Post
cselley@nationalpost.com

Read more: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/default.aspx#ixzz0X78r19y8
The New Financial Post Stock Market Challenge starts in October. You could WIN your share of $60,000 in prizing. Register NOW

Chris Selley: The mind of the ex-jihadi

Posted: November 16, 2009, 4:55 PM by NP Editor
Filed under: Canadian politics,Full Pundit,Chris Selley

The Independent's Johann Hari on Britain's apostate Islamists:

From the right, there was the brutal nativist cry of "Go back where you came from!" But from the left, there was its mirror-image: a gooey multicultural sense that immigrants didn't want liberal democratic values and should be exempted from them. Again and again, they described how at school they were treated as "the funny foreign child", and told to "explain their customs" to the class. It patronised them into alienation.

"Nobody ever said — you're equal to us, you're one of us, and we'll hold you to the same standards," says [Ed] Husain. "Nobody had the courage to stand up for liberal democracy without qualms. When people like us at [Newham] College were holding events against women and against gay people, where were our college principals and teachers, challenging us?"

Without an identity, they created their own. It was fierce and pure and violent, and it admitted no doubt.

Canada has neither a violent racist problem nor an Islamist extremist problem to anything like the extent Britain does — but it certainly has a gooey multiculturalism problem, however benign or malignant one considers it. In any event, Hari offers the clearest glimpse I've ever come across as to what turns British schoolboys — or Australian or American or Canadian schoolboys, potentially — into jihadists. It's incredibly compelling stuff.

National Post
cselley@nationalpost.com

Read more: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/default.aspx#ixzz0X78r19y8
The New Financial Post Stock Market Challenge starts in October. You could WIN your share of $60,000 in prizing. Register NOW

Chris Selley: The mind of the ex-jihadi

Posted: November 16, 2009, 4:55 PM by NP Editor
Filed under: Canadian politics,Full Pundit,Chris Selley

The Independent's Johann Hari on Britain's apostate Islamists:

From the right, there was the brutal nativist cry of "Go back where you came from!" But from the left, there was its mirror-image: a gooey multicultural sense that immigrants didn't want liberal democratic values and should be exempted from them. Again and again, they described how at school they were treated as "the funny foreign child", and told to "explain their customs" to the class. It patronised them into alienation.

"Nobody ever said — you're equal to us, you're one of us, and we'll hold you to the same standards," says [Ed] Husain. "Nobody had the courage to stand up for liberal democracy without qualms. When people like us at [Newham] College were holding events against women and against gay people, where were our college principals and teachers, challenging us?"

Without an identity, they created their own. It was fierce and pure and violent, and it admitted no doubt.

Canada has neither a violent racist problem nor an Islamist extremist problem to anything like the extent Britain does — but it certainly has a gooey multiculturalism problem, however benign or malignant one considers it. In any event, Hari offers the clearest glimpse I've ever come across as to what turns British schoolboys — or Australian or American or Canadian schoolboys, potentially — into jihadists. It's incredibly compelling stuff.

National Post
cselley@nationalpost.com

Read more: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/default.aspx#ixzz0X78r19y8
The New Financial Post Stock Market Challenge starts in October. You could WIN your share of $60,000 in prizing. Register NOW

Chris Selley: The mind of the ex-jihadi

Posted: November 16, 2009, 4:55 PM by NP Editor
Filed under: Canadian politics,Full Pundit,Chris Selley

The Independent's Johann Hari on Britain's apostate Islamists:

From the right, there was the brutal nativist cry of "Go back where you came from!" But from the left, there was its mirror-image: a gooey multicultural sense that immigrants didn't want liberal democratic values and should be exempted from them. Again and again, they described how at school they were treated as "the funny foreign child", and told to "explain their customs" to the class. It patronised them into alienation.

"Nobody ever said — you're equal to us, you're one of us, and we'll hold you to the same standards," says [Ed] Husain. "Nobody had the courage to stand up for liberal democracy without qualms. When people like us at [Newham] College were holding events against women and against gay people, where were our college principals and teachers, challenging us?"

Without an identity, they created their own. It was fierce and pure and violent, and it admitted no doubt.

Canada has neither a violent racist problem nor an Islamist extremist problem to anything like the extent Britain does — but it certainly has a gooey multiculturalism problem, however benign or malignant one considers it. In any event, Hari offers the clearest glimpse I've ever come across as to what turns British schoolboys — or Australian or American or Canadian schoolboys, potentially — into jihadists. It's incredibly compelling stuff.

National Post
cselley@nationalpost.com

Read more: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/default.aspx#ixzz0X78r19y8
The New Financial Post Stock Market Challenge starts in October. You could WIN your share of $60,000 in prizing. Register NOW