benevolent diversity bonzes know no bounds

I usually don't have to dig deep to find an example of liberal media bias. Check out the recent story, run by the Globe and Toronto Star, on the evangelical Christians "taking over" the Conservative Party nomination process. But the true extent of this bias becomes evident when find something, something like this article, a seemingly innocuous piece on a bunch of hapless Maritimes feeling nostalgic in Toronto. They’ve formed a local cultural association. Toronto mayor sent them a welcome letter.
The author of the article, Anthony Reinhart, has the following to say:

Perhaps it’s a testament to Toronto’s extraordinary tolerance of diversity that it would extend ethnic minority treatment to a people whose European colonial [sic!] roots in this country run as deep, and as white, as the city’s.

That’s really great. Toronto’s diversity gods are so benevolent in their grand exercise of inclusiveness that even welcome with open arms those dreadful honkies, the colonial scum no less. It’s interesting to find out that an ethnic minority is necessarily non-white one whatever the hell it means (how about Mexicans or Georgians or Armenians – are they non-white too?). So if you’re Ukrainian/Russian like myself ‘ethnic minority treatment’ doesn’t apply to you (I’ve figured that out long time ago though).
No less intriguing is the implying equation between being white and colonial and a Maritimer on the other hand. The conventional wisdom says that most Nova Scotians came, well, from Scotland or whereabouts (presumably long time ago) and that’s somehow made them guilty of ‘colonialism’, apparently a genetic trait. But what if some of those chaps’ ancestors came from say Sweden in the 1950s? What if he/she descends from those black loyalists who settled in Nova Scotia? These and many other question would be of course superfluous for it’s impossible to argue with an irrational prejudice that proclaims that all whites are guilty of ‘colonialism’ (or racism or whatever) by the virtue of being white and that ‘ethnics’ are colored folks who speak broken English and cook funny tasty food that would be grateful to tears to receive a benevolent approval from the PC masters.

you'll never walk alone

Liverpool set for heroes' return

Steven Gerrard celebrates with Liverpool fans
Photo gallery: Reds rejoice
Champions League winners Liverpool will parade the European Cup on Thursday as fans celebrate their historic win.


I had to teach a class this evening so only watched the game late at night when I already knew the result. Yet, it was still an astonishing victory. I was cheering for AC Milan of course ('cause of Sheva) but still I've got a soft spot for all English teams except Chelsea :-) and deserved it.
Gerrard, Dudek and other guys, I am happy for you!!!!

P.S. Andrew Coyne on Red Toryism

Here:

But then, Toryism has never been about intellectual consistency, most especially among that strange mutation, now the dominant strain in the party, known as Red Tories. The Red Tory, as the name implies, does not go in much for logical coherence or philosophical frameworks; indeed he prides himself on it. He is guided, rather, by sentiment, and nostalgia, and an unshakeable conviction that everything can be resolved through "dialogue."

Unless, of course said dialogue happens to be with those Alliance/CPC bastards. It's a no-no!

A letter to a friend: Red Toryism and the old PC

One of the thought provoking aspects of the yestereday's conversation was your suggestion
that people in Ontario, including yourself, would be willing to vot the Old PC if it still existed.
It puzzles me with no end for I can't phantom what was the Old PC raison d'etre in the first place. I've heard many times that the difference between the new Conservatives and the PC was that the latter was a party of Red Tories whereas the former no longer is.
So the issue here is to define what Red Toryism means. I'd been gathering the pieces myself , having concluded that somehow first and foremost applies to those who are not social conservatives. Then I came across this manifesto:
(note who hosts the article)
Well, I've read a couple of times and please, please anyone, help to find at least one thing that distinguishes the position this guy has taken from those of the Liberal Party of Canada.
He does say though that

I believe in a sphere for free enterprise and a sphere for an activist government. I believe that the Liberals have muddled the two together...

what the hell is supposed to mean I've no idea, especially coz he goes on to explain how a Red Tory G-nt would be 'business friendly" :

I want government to collaborate with businesses, not work against them

Yes, it does set him apart from the NDP, though I suppose that they would deny that they're not 'business friendly' (after all unlike true commies they want to milk business not to destroy it on the spot)
But what's the difference here against the Liberals, especially the Martin Liberals and after the Tony Labor and
Clintonite democrats it simply makes no sense to argue that the Liberals would be different in this department.
Balancing the budget has become an axiom (unless of course you're clinging to your political life and then anything goes).
to sum it up, I simply fail to see how the old PC and the LIberals differ on any issue. That's why it made no sense for the PC to keep existing in the light of the Liberal transformation. Of course, now when the Liberals have been tainted with corruption some might be willing to hand the power over to basically the same guys who haven't had a chance to line their poket, yet... But if that's the only choice the elites of this country permit you and me to have,
I am truly sorry for myself and other Canadians.

National Post's rusophobic coverage of VE Day

I didn't have time to post on Monday but it is hard to find words to express my deep disappointment and even anger over NP's choice of article on May 9. It's the Victory Day in Russia and fSU so the Post editors felt compelled to run something appropriate for the occasion.
What boy, what an awful choice did they make!!!
First it was this article by George Jones wherein he states as a self-evident truth that Russians are uncapable of building a society of their own. I mean it might be true to some extent but heck, I want some evidence, proof, argument as to why it is so. Instead, he spent the better part of the article by sugarcoating his main thesis in a completely phoney praise of Russsian virtues.
Then, it was another article "Communism's corrupt legacy". In fact, Russia was not even mentioned there, it was all about recent scandals in the Czech republic and other 'central' European countries. But make no mistake, an average reader goes from the first article to the second and without even a whiff of hesitancy he/she would think it's about Russia too!
And finally we come to this 'An eye for an eye' - this is the title of the article that features some excerpts of Max Hastning's book on Soviet atrocities in the occupied Germany and other countries. Hasting implicitly compares, wait for this!, Russian occupation of Germany and the Japanese occupation of China, notewithstanding the fact that the Japanese were the aggressors while the USSR after all had to defeat an enemy that had attacked it first.
I don't want to go into detail to what extent the Soviet war crimes against the conquired Germans paradigm is true or not. But to run such an article on the Victory Day (plus the other two articles, not exactly Russia-friendly) was a fit of Russophobia, let's be blunt about it.

There are enough dumbheads in Russia who are convinced that the West has no other business but to destroy and even enslave Russia. Being on the other side of the fence I always thought they were nuts. I still think they are and it's unfortunate that NP's coverage may in fact fan this prejudice.

My linguistic profile (another test)

Your Linguistic Profile:

40% Yankee

35% General American English

10% Dixie

10% Upper Midwestern

5% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

P.S. Interesting, given the fact that English is not my native language and while taking this test I had no idea as to what some questions were about (abooot :-))

VE Day: Russia, Ukraine, and Europe

Today is the VE Day (Victory in Europe). It is celebrated across Western and Eastern Europe (this morning I heard that even in Germany they now celebrate it as the Day of Liberation), except Russia, Ukraine and some other post-Soviet states where the Victory Day is May 9th.
My Ukrainian friends, especially those from Western Ukraine, would tell me that there's nothing to celebrate. The showdown between two equally murderous tyrannies ended up with a victory for one of them that brought a new enslavement and dictatorship upon the nations of Eastern Europe. I understand this sentiment and I do consider Communism THE most murderous ideology (actually communists around the world have managed to slaugther more people than the Nazis). Yet I believe regular soldiers, Russians, Ukrainians and others, were heroes in SPITE of the monstreous regime behind them. Like my grandfather.




I can't find his wartime fotos at the moment hence I'm posting here the one
that was taken in the end of the 20s I believe.
He fought in the war and died something like 20 years before I was born.
So I never heard his war stories but what I know from my other relatives he was
no friend of the regime and a Ukrainian patriot.
I still have his war medals and I know he fought not for Stalin or the Great
Russian Communist Empire but for his relatives and his land against the aggressors.

The people of the Soviet Union lost 27 million, if not more, in that war.
Wipe out the entire Canada except Toronto and that would be it.

Vichna Pamyat! Je me souvien.

KKK rears its ugly head in Canada (says a Liberal)

This story is beyond the beyonds.
If you're reading this and you're not from Canada, especially if you're a liberal from the U.S., you should appreciate the state of absolute mental meltdown in which the Liberal Party of Canada a.k.a. the Naturual Governing Party of the Great White North has found itself into. And you thought American politics was nasty.

It started out like this:

The Conservatives want an apology from Immigration Minister Joe Volpe for comparing them to the Ku Klux Klan.

The Opposition party is made up of racists, Volpe said Tuesday, calling members recognizable "notwithstanding that they don't have their cowl and their cape." "The Klan looks like it's still very much alive," the minister added.

Volpe made the comments in response to a magazine graphic in which Liberals are depicted as The Liberanos, a mocking reference to the television Mafia show The Sopranos.

A pair of Conservative MPs - Lee Richardson and Werner Schmidt - were photographed this week pointing to the graphic from the Western Standard magazine.
[...]
Volpe blasted the two Tory MPs for using the graphic as a political prop.

"I think these are a couple of fine, upstanding members of the new Conservative Klan," Volpe said, holding up the picture outside the House of Commons.

via Daimnation

Said poster, or some version of it, is here

via distrudeaupia

Just now, I heard Volpe talking on the radio to Dave Rutherford, host of the 630 CHED morning show. He refused to apologize and his line of defence, wait for this...

'When I saw that poster I got very angry coz I find this poster racist as it is a racial slur on Italian-Canadians.'

Uh-Uh, I"m, like, speechless. This guy is totally mental!!! (in the Ali G voice).
The funny thing that I remember Jean Cretien defending Alfonso Gagliano in the House of Commons when he used exactly same defence. Gagliano critics were somehow racist coz Gagliano is Italian and to accuse him of any wrongdoing is tantamount to playing the race card "All Italians are Mafia members". We all know what happened later (quick recup: To get him out of the spotlight, Mr. Gagliano was appointed ambassador to Denmark by Cretien. When Martin came to power the first thing he did was to fire Gagliano due to the corruption allegations. Surprise, surprise)

My message to the Canadian people:
Be prepared. In the upcoming campaign the Liberals will stop at nothing to prevent the Conservative to form the next government of Canada. And there's one big reason to it: once kicked out of the Sussex drive the Liberals would lose their position of the party of power in Canada and Canadians might in fact realize, oh horror, horror, that the Conservatives are not that bad.

Update: According to this story at the National Post, Volpe had once been approached for support by an Italian-Canadian, Francesca L'Ofrano, who was fighting a court battle against the Sopranos.

"He told me the Sopranos hadn't caused him any problems - it hadn't hurt his career or affected him at all"

What a f...ng hypocryte!

Keeping the high road - a hard thing to do

Today's National Post features another article by one of those professional social engineers, a BMO head of Human Resources department on women in big business.
Normally, I would have go out of my way to provide a proper reference and a detail rebuke of her argument but since I'm tired now, here's my dirty verdict: absolute f...ng crap!!!!
I refer to the crux of her argument, the premise that the composition of staff should reflect the diversity of the community in which it lives - or something like that...
MERIT, MERIT, MERIT - could and should be the only criterion, isn't that supposed to be f...ng self-evident...
Of course, she keeps talking about removing hurdles on women's path to corporate success, even though she doesn't explicitly mention discrimination, but in reality it's nothing more than a veiled apologia for preferential treatment.

But what's the source of such hypocrisy and why is it so endemic to big business (such the BMO - Bank of Montreal FYI) and state structures?
I think it's the "alienation of profits" - corporate bosses are essentially spending 'collective', someone else's, money just like the government is spending our taxes. That's why they can afford to embark upon such projects without having to think about potential losses.