The Pessimist

Richard Nixon declared "war on drugs" in 1971, and the war was escalated by every (Republican) president since. So, how's that going, eh?

There were previous wars on drugs, though they weren't called that at the time: Opium was banned in 1880, Alcohol was banned in 1919, Reefer Madness banned marijuana in 1937. But it was Ronald Reagan in the 1980's that really got the hearts and minds of government focussed on abolishing mind altering substances (except alcohol, of course). Nancy Reagan told youth to "just say no", and Bonzo mobilized the full force of the CIA, FBI, Coast Guard, ATF and every other bureaucrat, with or without a gun, to the cause.

The war was equally fought against Columbian drug lords and teenagers possessing a single spliff (or whatever the cool people call a "joint" these days). Crossing the border with a single seed of marijuana landed you in prison for the rest of your life. So, they're winning -- right?

The war has certainly had an effect.

• organized crime is flourishing on the premium profits to be made in contraband.
• addicts are criminals so cannot seek help to fight their addiction and must steal or prostitute themselves to afford their drug of choice.
• al Qaeda was born and remains fully funded by profits made from poppy fields in Afghanistan.
• terrorists and run of the mill criminals can afford the best guns, bombs, forged documents and bribed officials that money can buy.

Good job guys.

This same policy is now being carried out in Afghanistan. Afghanistan supplies 90% of the world's illegal heroin. Agents of the U.S. are roaming the countryside burning or defoliating the poppy crops. These crops are the primary source of income for these ignorant dirt-poor people.
al Qaeda buys the crops and the U.S burns them, leaving them to starve. Do you wonder why the peasants choose to support or at least tolerate al Qaeda?

Now, notice the word "illegal" above. Did you know that there was a world market for "legal" heroin? There is, and most of it comes from Turkey. Turkey got an exemption that allowed them to keep their poppy fields when they lost WWI. Legal heroin is used by the medical world as a pain killer. Dr. Gifford Jones has been campaigning his whole life for the expansion of the use of heroin in palliative care. Heroin is the best pain killer, bar none, by a wide margin. When cancer is eating you alive one organ at a time, and the right-to-lifers are marching to prevent your euthanasia, a shot of heroin would make you care not at all. But, instead, people are required to die in agonizing pain, and doctors don't prescribe heroin for two reasons:

1. the stigma attached to heroin
2. the world wide shortage of legal heroin

If we were to make Afghanistan's poppy fields legal, we would take the guns out of al Qaeda's hands and guaranty a peaceful "twilight sleep" when cancer knocks at our door.

I've been hearing in the news lately that we are losing the war. Three years ago, war was declared -- on SPAM (bet you didn't see that coming). Bill Gates declared that SPAM would be defeated within two years.

And actually, some progress was made. After a couple of years, the quantity of SPAM actually decreased for the first time ever. Shutting down source sites and identifying SPAM mail early and deleting it before it was propagated were two techniques that started to turn the tide.

But the bad guys are ever clever and ever adaptive. They got around being IDed by sending their sputum via stolen PC resources. Instead of originating from a server, which could be shut down, they used viruses and trojans to create a clone army of unwitting PCs to do their bidding. They got around having their messages identified by hiding them in images. The text of the SPAM is now in gif files, which are harder to identify than text messages. And to make them even harder to identify, they vary a few pixels in each image, meaning there is no "fingerprint" to be used to delete the millions of similar messages. They used judo on the spam cops. Like captcha (the image of text characters you are asked to identify when you register for a blog comment or forum site, or whatever --that a human can read but that a robot can't), these image spam are difficult for robo-cops to identify.

So now more SPAM than ever is reaching our in-boxes. Thanks fuckers. The laws need to be changed so that the penalty for making money off of SPAM is made stiffer. Something like:

• forfeiture of all of your worldly possessions
• imprisonment in a gibbet without food or water until dead
• the live streaming video of your death broadcast live over the internet as a message to other SPAMmers.

I think that might work. And to hell with extraterritorial jurisdiction. Make this a world law, enforceable where ever the SPAMmer is based -- offshore, Russia, Nigeria, where ever.

ThePessimist is optimistic that this might actually stop SPAM.

I haven't spent much time worrying about Darfur. It impinges on my consciousness from time-to-time, but generally I view it as just another piece of fucked up Africa. But this week's Macleans cover article Look Away, is hard to ignore.

I had assumed that Darfur was typical black-on-black violence, like Rwanda. In Rawanda, Hutus killed Tutsis, whose main difference, as far as I was able to determine was one "race" was tall and the other was not (can't remember which was which at the moment). But this difference was sufficient to require one to kill -- mostly with machetes -- 800,000 of the other over the period of a couple of months. The civilized world did nothing, because Rawanda has no oil.

Darfur, on the other hand, seems to be quite a different beast. In Darfur, Muslims are killing blacks. They are doing this, basically to steal their land, because desertification means there is now less land to go around. With the full support of the Sudanese government, an evil killing machine called the Janjaweed has, over the last three years killed 250,000 blacks and have displaced over 2 million people. The Janjaweed uses murder, rape, mutilation and scorched earth to remove the blacks form their homes. Again, though this genocide is running in slow motion, the civilized world is doing nothing about it. But unlike Rawanda, Sudan has oil, the difference in this case is Sudan's oil goes to China, and China has blocked all UN Security council motions to sanction Sudan.

Not that the UN has tried to do much, nor could they do much. The region is huge, and an invasion/occupation force would have to be several hundred thousand troops. The UN has none, the U.S has enough but they're all gainfully deployed in Iraq, Canada is fully tapped with 2 thousand deployed in Afghanistan, and Europe -- well, they're still pooped out from WWII.

But, I don't think that it is the white world that should be intervening here. This mess should be cleaned up by the Arab world. They've got the money, it's their corner of the world, and it is Muslim evil-doers who need to be killed. Peace-loving, Koran reading, Allah believing people should step up to right this wrong. If taking one life is like taking all lives, then what is taking a quarter of a million lives like?

There is precedent for this. When Slodoban Milosovic was ethnically cleansing Serbia of its Muslims (and Croats), Nato removed his government, killed his troops and basically put a stop to it. Admittedly it took a fair bit of prompting, but eventually they got off their ass and said "enough". This motion surprised the Muslim world, because here were Christians killing Christians to save Muslims, something that they thought would never happen. (And Serbia didn't even have oil!)

If an Islamic country had tried to intervene in Serbia to protect their fellow Muslims, the western world would probably have panicked, fearing the start of a new Ottoman empire. And this is why the West should not intervene in Darfur, because the Islamic world would suspect their intentions.

So a Muslim task force needs to smack down the Janjaweed. Get off your ass Saudi Arabia. Sudan is just off your border; how can you just stand their and watch genocide happen in your back yard?

I was just listening to an episode of CBC:Tapestry with an interview of Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation.

I haven't read either book, but I think I'm going to have to. This interview was brilliant; if you can spare the 53 minutes, I highly recommend listening to it. It has provided a half dozen quotes for my quote file.

Sample:

Every religious person knows exactly what it is like to be an atheist, in that they know what it is like to deny the validity of everyone else's god. Every Christian is not convinced by the discourse of Islam; not convinced that the Koran is the perfect word of the creator of the universe. Why do Muslims think that the Koran is the perfect word of the creator? Because it says so in the book. This is a bad argument, and every Christian notices it. Except they don't notice how bad an argument it is when it applies to their book.
- Sam Harris

Right on bro'. This is music to my ears.

I was pleased to read that my city is on the list of most intelligent communities in the world. As I'm just an average joe in this town, and judging by the superlative discourse evident on this website, clearly Waterloo belongs on the list.

We have two Universities -- one frequently voted best university in Canada (yes - the University of Waterloo - my alma mater) -- The Perimiter Institute, The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), RIM. Oh yes, there are brain cells a burstin' all around here.

Hmmm. Let's see. Who else is in the running. 2 other cities in Canada, 5 in the U.S, 3 in China, 3 in England, one in each of Australia, France, Iceland, Estonia and ... waaahhh!? Afghanistan?

Kabul Afghanistan is on the list of 21 most intelligent cities in the world. We better take a look at the criteria.

What makes Afghanistan such a fine candidate? Could it be its literacy rate?

• Male 51% the 119th highest in the world!
• Female 21% 141st in the world

Of course, those stats are a bit misleading, as there are 8 countries tied for 1st, 5 for 2nd, 5 for 3rd, etc. Afghanistan is actually behind 224 countries on the list, there are only 10 counties with a lower rate. (Three countries have lower female literacy.)

And what are those males reading? The Koran. That'll come in handy in the arts and sciences.

What about critical thinking? The Supreme Court in Kabul determined that
non-Muslims (infidels) have rights only if they convert to Islam; and the Muslims who convert away from Islam (apostacy) must be beheaded, unless they recant. That's fair, don't you think? (Emphasis on "don't think").

What is it that makes Kabul "a model for the development of prosperous local economies and vibrant societies in today's hyper-competitive broaband [sic] economy"? Ah ha, it must be the broadband infrastructure. Yes, here is the explanation from the Intelligent Communities website:

Using funds from development agencies and the US
government, this war-torn capital of Afghanistan has built a
telecom-based foundation for government
by linking ministries with district offices and military bases
throughout the country while expanding mobile service
nationwide from 0.01% to 6% in three years.

Yes! That's it ... a 60,000 per cent increase in cell phone service.
Looks like the warlords and drug lords got themselves some new cell phones. That's progress.

Well, it's been two months of silent running. It's not that there hasn't been things worth bitching about. Every morning's paper and every evening's newscast brings new stupidity that should be commented on.

• Muslim women defending the niqab (ski masks in public)
• Criminal Hasidic jews in Montreal getting special treatment from the police allowing them to deal with male officers instead of unclean female officers
• Iraqi's blowing themselves up in larger and larger numbers
• Kabul being nominated as one of the Smart 21 "Most Intelligent Communities" award
• Quebec is a Nation !?!
• Our local provincial court judge refusing to sentence criminals to jail because he feels jails are dangerous

Each item has caused me to run a response monologue through my head, but I just haven't been able to get it up, so to speak, onto the website.
Why fucking bother? Nobody reads it anyway. I might as well just think these pessimistic thoughts.

No, wait! The reason for this blog was to get these toxic thoughts out of my head. So, dear reader, watch this spot. I'll try and do a more frequent job of regurgitating my opinion on the news of the day. If you don't want to read it ... go fuck yourself.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf are of differing opinions on the porosity of their shared border. NATO commanders in Afghanistan assert that Taliban militants are being freely resupplied with personnel and materiel across the border. And when the skirmishes are lost, they equally freely retreat across the border to their bases in Pakistan.

Musharraf says that this is not so. Karzai says Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar are both living in Pakistan; Musharraf says they are in Afghanistan. He said, he said.

Canada's defense minister Gordon O'Connor has suggested Canadian officers and specialists could be deployed to Pakistan to assist in the search for Taliban militants. Musharraf dismissed the idea as an insult to Pakistani sovereignty and said it showed a lack of trust amongst allies. Then in an interview on the CBC Musharraf said "Canada has had only two dead and all they do is cry and complain". Look chuckles ... Canada has had 36 dead and hundreds wounded in the last few months. Get your facts straight. The only complaining Canada is doing is about Pakistan's truck trade and sympathy with the Taliban enemy. If you are an ally, act like one.

NATO forces, mostly Canadian, took on the Taliban in operations in the Panjwaii region last month. In a departure from their typical cowardly tactics of suicide bombings and midnight beheadings, the Taliban engaged in a stand up battle with Canadian forces. Five Canadians were killed, but when it was over, NATO spokesmen said that 500 Taliban were killed, striking a serious blow to their operational capabilities. While I was saddened by the loss of Canadian soldiers, you have to like those odds One hundred to one has to be considered a rout.

But is it true? The Taliban says that they had only 10 killed, and that most of the dead were civilians.

"The Truth is the first casualty in war."

I hope the truth lies somewhere closer to the NATO version of events. Killing a few thousand Taliban would make me ecstatic.

But back to that border issue. What the Canadians should do in the aftermath of battle is take a few surviving Taliban; shove a GPS locating device up their ass; and drop them back on the battlefield. If we can track wolves and bear around the Rockies with electronic devices, why not Taliban in the Hindu Kush. Watch where they go after they regain consciousness. If they end up in Pakistan, drop a bunker-buster on their position. Then let Musharraf know where the Taliban base was.

I used to have a link to ThePessimist dot com on my site, just because it shared a domain name similar to mine.

But, it doesn't seem to be there anymore, and Haloscan reports that the site was "recently hacked". So, I've delete the reference to that site.

Long live ThePessimist dot ca !

Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan have been involved in a number of defensive shooting incidents in the last few days.
A motor-cycle with two boys on it blew through an Afghan police check point into an area where a suicide bomber had attacked a Canadian convoy, killing one soldier. The motor-cyclist ignored signals to stop, and they were fired upon by Canadian soldiers, killing the driver and wounding the passenger.
The next day, two separate incidents occurred involving Afghan police. The police, in plain clothes, approached a Canadian check point. Not only did they not heed signals to stop, one of the police fired on the Canadian position. Of course, the Canadians responded, killing a couple and wounding several others.
The Canadian Military Command has issued a statement of regret, apologizing for the incidents.

Why do they need to apologize for any of these events?

The first incident, involving the boys on the motor-cycle, is regrettable, but totally understandable. A second suicide bomber arriving on the scene a few hours after a "successful" suicide bombing is standard operating procedure for terrorists. They get a chance to kill emergency workers, investigators and curious on-lookers amid the chaos. A motor-cycle running a check-point exactly matches that operational profile. The Canadians had to shoot them.

The fact that the motor-cycle was not carrying explosives is an inconvenient truth in the perfect gaze of hindsight. The question has to be asked ... what were those boys thinking? They've lived in a war-zone all of their lives. They must be the most ignorant of buffoons if they hadn't yet learned that charging a military vehicle is a recipe for suicide.

The average Afghani peasant is likely illiterate, having received no education, except perhaps a rote memorization of the Koran in Arabic. You can't expect them to be able to read stop signs even those written in their own language, whatever the hell that is. But, being able to recognize a vehicle with a big gun on top as a dangerous thing is something that should be totally obvious to someone in that situation.

The Afghan police incidents is a little harder to explain. The police are supposed to be working with the Afghani national army and the NATO soldiers. What possible explanation could there be for the police ignoring the stop signs of the check-point, let alone opening fire on the check-point? The only explanation that makes any sense is that at least one of the police was a Taliban.

The Canadian Military Command should not be apologizing. They should be demanding an investigation of the Afghani police force to see how the Taliban has infiltrated it. Perhaps they are moles. Perhaps there is outright sympathy with Taliban objectives amongst the police. Either way, an investigation is needed to prevent further incidents.

I've already suggested a method for screening the Taliban from official positions or receipt of international aid:
Ask the applicant his opinion on the education of girls. If he is against it, tattoo a "T" on his forehead. Then deny him any benefits of civilization, and shoot him on sight if he is spotted carrying a weapon.

Hijab, burqa, turban, yarmulke, skull cap, mitre

Well, you know me; always willing to try new things. I heard that Yahoo Answers was all the rage on the internet. The first new idea in a while that was launched by somebody other than google. The first question on the new site was asked by Steven Hawking, so It has a pretty good pedigree. Right?

I thought I'd give it a spin. I signed up and posted my first question:
So, does wearing a silly hat make you religious, or does being religious make you want to wear silly hats?

I didn't get many answers, probably because I couldn't find the religion category and posted it in Anthropology instead. I couldn't find religion (no pun intended) so I assumed there was no category, given it might lead to proselytizing.

Answers ranged from telling me I'm an idiot

i wear silly hats whenever i feel like it.
i will even let you on a little secret...
sometimes i even put on my thinking cap pomdoepol

or the highly reasoned response:

WTF?

from lavendergirl who has probably never before considered religion to be ridiculous.

A few of the answers I liked:

"I would rather reason drunk with a dog than reason sober with a religious fanatic."

Being silly and religious has nothing to do with hats. Eugene P

Well, let's look at it this way; There are two guys from different religions, each wearing their religion's hat. Each points at the other and cracks up. Which one is wearing the silly hat? davidi

The most elaborate (and useless) answer I received was

What silly hats are you refering to exactly? All religions have histories (some going back thousands of years actually) and traditions. That does not make them "silly". They all have meaning and if you studied a particular religion there is actually meaning and a reason for whatever is worn by the clerics of that religion and by some of the followers. These are not random things but have great meaning for that religion. Uniforms as it were are worn for all kinds of things. I don't get your point at all. And why would someone's religious preference or their tradition bother you in any way? Not very tolerant or educated is it? Island Queen

which confuses culture and religion. Or maybe that is the point. In Afghanistan and Israel, the costumes are part of the culture. It is all you can buy to wear, it's not "silly", it just is.
But when these people immigrate to Canada, the U.S or Europe, where these costumes are not traditional, and they insist on wearing them anyway, what does that say?
It says, I don't belong here; I don't accept my new homeland; I want to make this new homeland like my old homeland. I want to destroy your culture.

I agree with Holland. These people should be given one generation to adapt. Grandma can stay in the house, not learn english and wear whatever she likes. But, if you want a job or go to school, go to the store and buy some clothes off the rack. Send your children to public school, so they can learn the language and become proper citizens of their adopted country.

Or get out. Go back to where wearing silly hats is the norm.

ThePessimist is curious about the shit-storm currently errupting in Israel.
The news is filled with pictures of war and family suffering. Governments are jumping to evacuate their citizens from the area. Canada, for one, is being criticized -- at least, by the opposition and the families -- of not acting quickly enough.

But curious: Why are foreign nationals being evacuated from Lebanon and not Isreal?

Evidence: Try googling "Evacuation from Lebanon" 80,000 hits.
But google "Evacuation from Israel" and get 5 (not 5 thousand ... just 5).

Seems to me that missiles are being fired in both directions and hell is descending from the sky in both countries. Canada, for some reason, has 50,000 Canadian citizens present in Lebanon. I haven't heard a number, but I would expect that the number of Canadian citizens in Israel would be similar or even bigger.

Why are people jumping out of Lebanon and not Israel?
Could it be that they know Israel is right and will have to crush the Hezbollah terror organization; and has the unlimited will and power to do it?

Still ... where did Hezbollah get thousands of missiles capable of traveling 50km with relative accuracy?

What the hell is going on in Israel? I'm not one to believe in Faery Tales like the End of Days predicted by the Bible. But the recent happenings in and around the region of Israel makes me think something is up.

The amount of trouble caused by the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is so out of proportion to their relative population and geography that no rational explanation is believable. The land mass of Israel is a mere 22 thousand sqkm. (Canada is 10 million and the US is 9.6 million.) If you overlaid the map of Israel over either Canada or the US, it would be almost impossible to find, as it would cover only 0.2%.

Israel's current round of problems started with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip killing a few of its soldiers, and kidnapping one. On the geographic theme, Gaza Strip is 360 sqkm. or just under 2% of the size of Israel. In a world perspective, this insignificant place (Israel) is being pestered by its proportionately insignificant neighbour. Yet this tinder-box is likely to set the world ablaze. The Muslim world pretends to care deeply about these distant cousins under the heel of the evil Zionist state.

If the likely consequences weren't so serious, the whole thing would be hilarious. Hamas captures a single Israeli soldier and demands that Israel negotiate with them. Has Israel ever negotiated with terrorists before? No. Do they have any resources to backup their bravado? No.

The whole thing reminds me of a scene in Blazing Saddles. When the new black sheriff finds himself surrounded by the town's menfolk, each of them pointing guns at him, he points his own gun at his own head and says "Drop your weapons or the nigg*r gets it." Except in that case, Cleavon Little wins the day as the townsfolk unexpectedly comply. In this case, I don't think Israel is going to drop their weapons and bargain with the Gazans.

And why should they? What would France do if Luxembourg spent the last 50 years firing missiles over the border and denying they existed. Yeah, yeah, they'd probably surrender. But then they'd ask Britain and the United States to help them wipe out the little annoyance.

I think the Palestinians are up to something. I think they're counting on provoking the expected Israeli overreaction and drawing Iran into the conflict. Iran will Nuke Israel (of course, that'll wipe out the Palestinians too, but then, logic hasn't been their strong suit.) The overreaction has already begun, with a second front opening with Lebanon.

Is it getting hot in here?

Saturday was Canada Day. It was a beautiful day to walk around the local festivals and appreciate what a great country we live in. We are so justified in celebrating our personal freedom, our tolerant society and our abundant and fairly distributed wealth.
Some may disagree, of course, but that is their right.

The one thing that spoiled the day for me, however, was the repugnant sight of 3 women wearing burqas! One was at the Columbia Lake Canada celebration -- a free all-day open-air concert, kiddie fair, firework show. The other two were having a family picnic at Waterloo park. They were covered head-to-toe in black fabric, with a solid black face-mask leaving only their eyes showing. The first woman seemed to be by herself, which seemed odd. The "man" of the family in the park wasn't wearing any sort of ethnic costume. Basically, he was dressed like a schlub.

Being a non-confrontational kinda guy, I didn't do anything except glower. The encounter left me seething. Now I wish I had said something to them, though that probably would have gotten me arrested.

I'm quite liberal. I can tolerate a great deal of diversity; actually, I insist on it. Tolerance is the principle that makes Canada such a great place to live. But, the one thing that I cannot tolerate is intolerance. And the burkha is the very symbol of intolerance.

Wearing the burkha means:

• the woman is a chattal of a man, no more than a goat or a cow.
• that no man can be trusted in the presence of a woman ... the mere sight of a bare ankle or uncovered hair means that the man must rape and kill her, because he cannot be expected to control his "urges"
• they refuse to accept any law beside God's
• they refuse to be integrated into society.

I believe that France has done the right thing by legislating that outward signs of religious affiliation cannot be worn in public school.
I believe that the Netherlands is right in telling their guest residents that they must conform to Dutch norms or leave. Australia has said similar things.

Canada must take a stand against this hateful, intolerant uniform, just like they did against female genital mutilation. The burqa is a hate crime, and it should be banned.

A while back I had to turn off anonymous comments on this blog because I was getting too much comment spam ... over 10 per day. I was spending more time deleting spam than I was writing for the site.

Unfortunately, requiring people to register for this site before allowing them to comment virtually assured that I would never get another legitimate comment.

I had heard from a friend (Hi Spin) that he used Haloscan as his comment manager, and he never got comment spam. So, I thought I'd give it a try.

So, now notice down below each comment there is now a link called "Haloscan Comment". This will bring up the Haloscan comment manager. All you need do is fill in a nome de guerre and an optional email and url and comment away. If you've used haloscan on any other blog, you don't even need to do the id bit -- those will be prefilled.

So give it a try. Tell me what you think. Having two comment mechanisms on the site may be confusing, but so far, it seems to work. I may ultimately chose to ditch B2Evo commenting all together; or even B2Evo all together, if moving to new software wasn't such a pain.

and shoots several constitutional amendments in the foot.

The U.S was stunned by the arrest of 6 muslim terrorists plotting the demise of their home country. Yes, they were citizens of the U.S, just like the recent 17 muslim terrorists arrested in Toronto were Canadian citizens. Home grown terrorists! Like London and Madrid; now America.

But the similarity between the cases ends there. The Canadian terrorists had actually advanced to the point of acquiring explosives, having already acquired detonators and attempting to acquire illegal firearms. Yes, the fertilizer was being delivered by the RCMP, but if the order hadn't been intercepted by the RCMP due to wire-tap/internet intelligence, it could easily have been delivered and used. Go Team CSIS!

The Miami 'terrorists' hadn't done anything illegal. It seems they were just a bunch of disgruntled dip-shits who hate their government. They had no weapons, no explosives, no training, and apparently not a fully functioning brain amongst them. They did swear allegiance to al Queda, but only at the suggestion of an FBI mole. My understanding of the U.S constitution is that one has freedom to express ones self (for example, like complaining about the government) and the freedom of association (even if your preferred associates are a bunch of morons).

The FBI appears to have acted prematurely. Certainly this group warranted being monitored. But until they took some steps that actually made them dangerous, what was the point in arresting them?

Maybe it was Mountie envy.

I wondered into the blogosphere to read what people are saying about the Toronto Terrorist plot, where I shortly found myself in the weirdest place: I found myself defending Muslims. (Link to the whole sorry argument.)
That is an odd place for me because I hate Muslim extremism. I hate all religious extremism, but today there seems to be more of the muslim variety about. I can say 'hate' without fear of attracting the attention of CSIS or Canada's hate crime legislation, because the last time I checked it was ok to hate 'hate'. As a matter of fact, I believe it is a Canadian duty to do so.

Now, I don't much care for religious fundamentalism/orthodoxy either. You know, the people who believe theirs is the one true god, and others who believe in other gods or no gods are going to hell. I don't believe in hell, so this is really no concern of mine. But CSIS should be open to watching these people too to make sure they stay in the fundamentalist/orthodox category and don't stray into the extremist category. The distinction is subtle ... the extremists believe that those who believe in other gods or no gods need to be removed from this world. And that concerns me.

I find myself defending moderate muslims. I believe that all muslims residing in Canada should be striving for the ideal Canadian religious plane ... pluralist or better yet secularist. Like lapsed Roman Catholics:

• go to church on high religious holidays, if at all,
• have priests available at the important events requiring sacraments (birth, marraige, death)
• listen to the church hierachy when it is convenient to do so, and stand up to it when the church is wrong (condoms, birth control, gay marraige)
• but otherwise live and let live in a Canadian style

I believe that the majority of muslims are striving for this type of integration. Or, if not striving for it, then headed for it using the three-generation immigrant model that has worked for all of us other immigrants.

I know these people exist. My dentist is one (the only muslim I know). I let him put sharp objects in my mouth and let him administer drugs to me. He has been to Mecca. He has raised three fabulous daughters ... all university educated professionals. I believe, or at least hope, that this is the norm among muslims living in Canada.

The moderate Muslim community needs our support. They also need to clearly state their commitment to Canadian ideals and responsibilities. I'm sorry they need to do this so frequently now; but it is the extremists acting in their name that are making it necessary.

When I first heard the news reporting that terrorists in Toronto had acquired 3 tons (tonnes?) of ammonium nitrate, it was implied that this was a well financed terrorist cell. al-queda connected !?!
How much would three tonnes cost, I wondered? I did a little mental arithmetic. At the local garden centre, 1 kilogram of Miracle Gro costs about $25. So a tonne would be $25,000 and 3 tonnes would be $75,000. Hmmm. That's a lot of scratch.
But a couple of days later, I read in the newspaper that a ton of ammonium nitrate, in bulk, costs about $250. Or, if it is packaged into convenient 40kg bags, maybe twice that.

Well, that tells me a couple things that I didn't know:

• I'm paying a HUGE mark-up for fertilizer at my local garden centre.
• anybody with a credit card could afford 3 tonnes of bulk ammonium nitrate -- $1,500 in bags

So, to promote growth in my garden it is fairly costly.
But, to promote death, it comes pretty cheap.

ThePessimist just doesn't think that that is right.

Canada woke up this lovely spring weekend to find that a clutch of muslim terrorists had been apprehended while trying to make one hell of a large bomb.
Like the wake-up call that London England received last year, the true horror of the situation was that the criminal scumbags were our own citizens ... some born here, others long-time residents. Fortunately, unlike the London experience, their diabolical plot was exposed before they could bring it to fruition.

It appears that Canada has learned something since the Air India fiasco 20 years ago. In that situation, you may recall, CSIS was wire-tapping a group of Sikh hate-mongers. RCMP officers tailed a couple of them into the woods where they heard an explosion, but did nothing about it. Right under the noses of law enforcement, the Baba Kalsa managed to commit the largest mass murder in Canadian history. Through some twisted form of political correctness and apparent gross incompetence, the perpetrators were never brought to justice.

I am extremely happy with the outcome of this current situation, as it has been described so far. Per current reporting, it seems the criminals were

• caught in a dragnet of internet terrorist websites
• effectively tailed and wire-tapped over a two year period as they hatched their plans
• stung when police intercepted their truck-load of explosives supplies and
• taken into custody in a coordinated lightning take-down in many locations

It has been indicated that CSIS, RCMP and local law enforcement units worked together as a team, something that US Homeland security is still struggling with all these years after 9/11.

Let's hope that these scumbags never see the light of day again. This hope still hangs in the balance, of course, as the fog of lawyers roll in. They'll be trying with all their might to fabricate rights for the accused and play the race-card to get the politically correct to back off. Things like:

• The right to religious freedom to spout hate against those who don't share your religious views
• The right to associate with those who would kill those who disagree with them, or any random individual who might be standing in the wrong place at the wrong time.
• The right to political dissent, which includes the right to ignore any law that conflicts with your reading of an irrelevant 800 year old fairy-tale from a land far far away.

Good work CSIS. Keep up the good work.

Out of necessity, I have had to turn off anonymous comments.
This site was receiving 10 to 20 comments a day offering up all kinds of base disgusting porn, various prescription drugs, casino gambling, Airline flights, search engines, and whatnot.

Some of the comments didn't even have valid links. Many of them had links to whatever.blogspot.com, but when investigated, these links were invalid. I don't know what these fuckers get out of posting comment spam with links to nonexistent sites. How do you make money doing that? Maybe they do it just for fun.

But I am now so fed up with deleting this detritus I have taken the step of eliminating the anonymous comment option. Not that anybody was commenting anyway, but I was wasting so much time cleaning up spammer poop that I haven't had time to ride any of my favourite hobby-horses.

So, if you actually want to leave a comment, you are going to have to register for this site. Sorry for the inconvenience. I promise that your email will never be used for any purpose.

I've had to ban blogspot from making comments because in the last two weeks blogspot comment spam has increased to about 10 variations a day.
I was spending more time deleting comment spam than I was actually writing for my blog. I updated my b2evo from version 0.9.0.12 to 0.9.1 hoping that that might help, but this morning there were 10 variations of craps.blogspotdotcom attached to every article on my site.

So, if you are a blogspot blogger and would like to comment on my site, sorry, you won't be able to put a link back to your site. Bug blogspot management to fix their spam problem.

-------- Update 2006 May 9
I unbanned blogspot a few days ago, and so far so good.
But if I have to start swatting away several blogspot comment-spammers a day again, I won't hesitate to reban them.

-------- Update 2006 May 18
I'm still getting blogspot comment spam, but it looks like it has nothing to do with blogspot.
I just deleted comments linking to
american-airlines-u3z9.blogspot.com.
But it seems this link doesn't actually exist.
I don't understand the purpose of this crap. If it has no legitimate link, how can a spammer make any money off of this type of activity?

-------- Update 2006 May 19
OK. Blogspot has been rebanned. Today I got eight different comment spams with links back to fictitious blogspot.com URLs.
I might as well just turn off anonymous commenting. 99% of the comments I receive are spam.
If you want to place a comment on my site, you'll have to register.
Sorry.

-------- Update 2006 May 23
I have now unbanned blogspot, again. It seems that it is not their fault.
But, I have had to ban anonymous comments all together.

The U.S court trying Zacarias Moussaoui has found him both guilty and eligible for the death penalty. While the case proceeds to the next phase to determine if he will receive the death penalty or life imprisonment, we should take a moment to play arm-chair juror.

Now, apparently the majority of Americans would like to see Moussaoui put to death. (And when I say "would like to see", I mean I think they would actually pay good money for tickets to watch the actual execution.) This feeling is quite understandable. He is the only surviving 9/11 conspirator in captivity. He is obviously a level 1 scumbag. He hates the West with a white hot passion, and we should hate him.

But should he really be put to death? I don't think so.

What do we know about the case? We don't seem to know much. Most of the "evidence" seems to have been provided by Moussaoui himself. And his testimony and prior statements have flipped 180 degrees more times than flight 93.

• he either knew or didn't know about the 9/11 plot
• he did or didn't know sufficient details to have prevented it
• he may or may not have been the 20th hijacker.
• he may have been part of a fifth crew, or a follow-up wave of attacks, or maybe not.

All we seem to really know for sure is:

• he thinks 9/11 was a really great thing
• he really wishes he were involved
• he thinks America got everything it deserved, and
• if given the chance, he would certainly try to do further harm.

The man on some level is retarded. He has been told what he should believe, and he believes it. He wants to die for his cause, but he didn't, due to either dumb luck or incompetence. He certainly doesn't want to be held in a box by the infidels. We seem to have no evidence of an actual crime; just a lot of evidence of what this retard believes.

One should not be executed for what one believes. To see how the shoe fits on the other foot, see the discussion on the Afghanistan apostasy trial that drove the West apoplectic just last month.

Moussaoui is a significant risk to reoffend and he should not spend another moment of his life as a free man. But he should not be rewarded with his ticket to paradise, which is all he truly desires and only his captors can give him now.

I was reading a disturbing account of a week on patrol with Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan. It described the Kibuki theatre in village after village where the patrol would sit down for tea with the village elder. Tea would be drunk, sympathetic words would be spoken, but little would be accomplished besides filling their bladders.

Meeting with the elders is apparently important, as it is the only form of government in the wild west around Kandahar. And the tradition of these tea discussions goes back centuries. It is said that when sitting down with the elders, you are perfectly safe, because you are under their protection. Getting an axe in the head is not supposed to happen.

The soldiers related the story of having a rpg fired at their convoy. They chased the gunman into a village, but he disappears, because he looks like everybody else in the village.

The Canadian soldiers get the unmistakable impression that every word spoken to them by the village elders was a bald face lie. "No, there are no Taliban here", "No, there are no weapons here".

Now, I suppose it is in the elders interest to lie. He may like some cooperation from the Canadian soldiers -- protection, development money -- but the Canadians aren't in his village but for an hour. At night, they must face the Taliban. Or, maybe they are Taliban. How can you tell?

Taliban is a state of mind. It doesn't wear a uniform.

I'm just waiting for the first story to come out of Afghanistan about a Canadian patrol massacring a village. There have already been such stories coming out of Iraq. Just last week 16 people were found dead in Bagdad, mostly women and children, killed at close range, alledgedly, by American soldiers. They were in a house of suspected alleged insurgents.

I can understand it, too. It doesn't take much imagination to put yourself in their shoes. As the body count goes up and the enemy can't be found because he looks like everybody else, you are going to lash out at everybody else. Who could blame them.

My previous solution to these problems in Afghanistan may have been a bit overboard: Nuke the site from orbit. I've had a rethink and have come up with a better solution.

You set up two public rallies. The first is in support of "Death to all apostates"; the second is in support of "universal education for boys and girls". Then, you kill everybody at the first rally.

Still too extreme you say? Tell me a better solution. The problem in Afghanistan is hidden in the mind. The mental (retarded) nature of the enemy is self perpetuating. They truly believe that the Islamo-fascist way is the only way, and they are happy to die for this idea. I say we help them out.

The alternative is our own Vietnam. And ThePessimist doesn't want that.

Time for a follow up on some of the stories ThePessimist has commented on recently.

Canadian Goodwill Mission
The little Afghani boy suffering from face cancer is suffering no more. He died this week, right on schedule, despite some hopeful signs that the cancer might be treatable. A sad ending to be sure; but then, all of Afghanistan is a sad story likely headed for a sad ending.

Hopefully this humanitarian gesture, by the Canadian soldiers and the church folk back in Calgary, will have bought some goodwill with the local villagers. But ThePessimist thinks that is unlikely. Actually, ThePessimist wonders if the grandad who brought the little boy to the Canadian base for help would have even given a rats ass if grandchild had been a granddaughter.

Harper rallies the troops
I was joking about Stephen Harper's planned visit to Afghanistan. But, he managed to pull it off. Just a day or two after denying that there were plans to visit the troops, a surprise visit did come off without a hitch. Harper showed up in Kandahar under a cloak of secrecy. He looked mighty "presidential" addressing the troops and confirming his support for the operation. And unlike Bush, Harper stayed in camp overnight, before making a state visit with Karzai in Kabul.

It looked like Harper was finally turning around the ethics plagued start to his Prime Ministership. But then the second Muslim shit-storm hit the fan. To the total embarrassment of moderate Muslims around the world, the Afghani Sharia law based courts charged Abdul Rahman with the capital crime of converting to Christianity.

Moderate Muslims : Oxymoron ?
The first shit-storm was the world-wide riot protesting the blasphemous cartoon portrayal of the Prophet Mohammed. To the secular/Christian world, this gross overreaction proved the widely held belief that the Muslim world was barbaric, backward, and uncivilized. But after a couple of weeks of rioting, I started noticing Moderate Muslims issuing statements abhorring the violence and suggesting the need to look for balance. They say that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance, and that the riots were the work of a few troublemakers goaded on by a small radical element and allowed by the totalitarian governments as a diversion from their real social problems.

Well, that sounded pretty good didn't it? But then, just as that issue started to fade, the world was made aware that Sharia law requires that converts from Islam must be killed. The Taliban was overthrown, but the new government was powerless to control their radical clerics. And clerics described as moderate by some standard are agitating to kill the apostate even if he is released. And from the reporting I've been seeing, the general Afghani population agrees. "Pull him to pieces until nothing remains of him."

As of yesterday the charge against Rahman was dropped "for lack of evidence". The other face saving out for the Afghani government was to have Rahman declared insane and therefore not fit to stand trial. Nobody in Afghanistan, however, is saying that anybody has the right to convert, renounce, or declaim from Islam. If you are a Muslim, you must always remain a Muslim. How far is that from the Taliban position that everybody must be a devout Muslim, and if you are not Muslim enough (if you cut your hair, miss prayers, listen to music, don't cover your women), then you should be beaten, or worse.

This second shit-storm is even more important that the first. But where is the voice of the moderate Muslims in condemnation of this insular society? Are there any? Or are they just afraid to speak?

So why is it that if God is so all-powerful, so all-knowing, so omnipotent, that he needs our constant attention? Why all the scraping and grovelling? Why must we be required to stone to death, burn at the stake, cut the heads off of, or go to war with those who don't do god's bidding. Why doesn't he just smite them himself? Hmmm?

How is it possible to humiliate such a great and powerful creature, simply by not believing in him, or by eating pork when he told us not to? God must have a really small dick if he is so easily embarrassed.

Take the case of Abdul Rahman. He is the Afghani who 15 years ago converted from Islam to Christianity. Last week he was arrested after being turned in by his family because apostasy is a capital crime under Sharia law. The judge in the case has decided he is guilty and shall be sentenced to death, by hanging apparently, before a word of evidence has been heard. Abdul apparently has no legal representation.

The ensuing outrage by the civilized world has caused the clerics to circle the wagons. World leaders (Rice, Harper, Merkel) have contacted Karzai to express their deepest concern. The citizens of the world who have contributed troops for the liberation of Afghanistan from the Taliban, and aid for reconstruction of the basket case nation, stand aghast. Why did we remove one evil anarchic theocracy to have it replaced with another? But so far, the best proposal is to have Abdul declared insane; Islam apparently not endorsing the execution of the insane. (I've always said that belief in god is a form of brain damage, but that is beside the point.) But dozens of senior clerics in Afghanistan are now lining up to say that Abdul must be put to death. If the government frees him, then the people will kill him themselves. ("Tear him to pieces" is how they actually described it.)

It is obviously the Afghani males that have the small dicks, not their god. It is actually difficult to say which is smallest -- their dicks or their brains. Both are apparently shrunken from centuries of no education besides madras, which uses no book besides the Koran. They treat their women like livestock and experience only the company of men. What need have they of dicks or brains?

The Afghani high court is presently trying one of their citizens for the capital crime of converting to Christianity.

"We will invite him again because the religion of Islam is one of tolerance. We will ask him if he has changed his mind. If so we will forgive him," trial judge Ansarullah Mawlazezadah told the BBC on Monday. "But if he refused to reconvert [he will be put to death]" BBC

Wait a minute. This isn't a pronouncement by some back-water Taliban warlord in the mountains around Kandahar. This is the high court of the official government in Kabul.

Yes, it seems Saria Law makes it a crime for a Muslim to renounce the faith of Islam. (I guess this is the same Sharia law that pronounces that girls may not receive an education; and that anyone providing an education to girls shall be beheaded !)

Would Stephen Harper please remind me why Canadian soldiers are supporting and protecting this government? President Karzai has stated that he will not intervene in this case.

Mr. Karzai has another think coming. If this case goes forward and a conviction and execution ensues, than his government has to be replaced. He has to take immediate action to remove this judge from the bench (or whatever Mullah judges sit on), or he must forego all Western aid and protection.

We live in a pluralist society. We do not care if you believe in this god or that, or no god or lots of gods. But the state cannot be allowed to use its power to coerce one god for all. And our society cannot allow another society to do so either. At least, not one that expects our help and trade. If they want to live in the dark ages, then that is where they should live.

Too bad. So sad. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

For the sarcasm impaired ... no, I'm not at all unhappy that Slobodan is dead. Who could be, really, except for the hard core Serbian nationalists.
I suppose his victims, and the war crimes tribunal aren't entirely pleased that the megalomaniacal bastard has escaped justice. But now he's dead, so God can sort him out.

All that remains to be decided is the disposition of his body. I think that he should be disposed of like Hitler was -- cremated and discarded in an undisclosed location. The world doesn't need a shrine to inspire future dreamers of a Greater Serbia. However, why anybody would follow the path set down by Fearless Leader is beyond comprehension. Every time he raised his ugly little pecker-head, more people died and Serbia lost another province.

For my loyal readers who are getting a bit tired of the cartoon flap, I would like to get back to my original theme of the looming world-ending energy crises. But first, let's segue through three ridiculous stories in the news this week, tangentially connected via Afghanistan.

Utah Superior Court awards war widow $100M in wrongful death suit
You may recall our good friends the Khadr family -- the Canadian Taliban. Omar Khadr, has been a guest of the U.S. in Guantanamo Bay for his role in a battle in Afghanistan 2 years ago, He apparently killed one and wounded another U.S soldier before he was captured and imprisoned; he was 15 at the time. Seems the soldier's widow successfully sued Omar for the wrongful death of her husband and has been awarded $100 million. Wow! What a victory.

Now, I don't begrudge the widow her grief for a moment. Her husband's death was a terrible thing. However, I have a few problems with this decision:

• don't all soldiers risk death in a war zone? What makes this one soldier's death "wrongful". in a legal context?
• $100M ! Where did that number come from? O.J. Simpson's wife's family was only awarded $30M
• Omar was 15 at the time. Here he would be considered a Young Offender and would face only the most minimal of charges
• He wasn't present at the trial and was therefore unable to defend himself
• The strongest evidence presented at the trial was from news reports
• how's Omar going to pay this decision. Will they garnishee his Gitmo wages?

But here's an idea. Why don't the families of each of the 2400 soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq bring suits against their "killers". Do the math.

$100 million x 2400 = $240 billion.

Voila! The cost of the war would be fully recovered. If the lawyers could implicate the Saudi royal family, they might actually have a chance in collecting the settlements. Unfortunately, then we'd have to kill a lot of rich lawyers.

Edmonton congregation raises $10k for Afghani face cancer victim link
This is a heart-warming story about a little boy with terminal face cancer. He was brought by his grandfather into the Canadian forces base in Kandahar. A soldier emailed his church in Edmonton who collected $10,000 to send the boy for medical attention in Pakistan.

Isn't that nice. All those people in Edmonton can feel good about themselves for easing the suffering of a boy on the other side of the world.

The boy is obviously suffering, as his cancer is a black, golf-ball-sized tumour on the side of his face. It's quite gross actually, but let's look a little closer. The camp doctor diagnosed the cancer as terminal; the boy will likely be dead in weeks at the most. The only thing that can be done for him is to ease his suffering until his inevitable demise. How is that done? With the application of heroin, the most effective pain killer known to man. And where does 75% of the world's heroin come from? Afghanistan. And why is the boy's grandfather taking care of him instead of his father? Because the boy's father is a totally whacked-out opium addict who doesn't have the wit left to know he even has a son.

So, $10 thousand isn't going to do much about the real suffering in Afghanistan. That country needs $10's of billions to eradicate the real cancer - the Taliban and the warlords.

Steve Harper to Visit Kandahar link
I don't know if this makes me laugh or cringe. It is being suggested that Steve Harper visit Canadian troops in Afghanistan as his first trip abroad.

Two things. After all the wingeing Canadians did when George Bush went to see his good buddy Vincente Fox, president of Mexico, before visiting Ottawa, you'd think this would be a no-brainer. Real or imagined, the tradition is that newly elected Presidents of the U.S and Prime Ministers of Canada visit each others capitals for their first official state visits. Steven Harper should go the Washington first.

Visiting the troops would be a great morale booster for the troops, but if he gets his ass blown off, well, lets just say that that would be a bit of a problem. George Bush may be able to sweep into the middle of a war zone on a fully cloaked Air Force One and carve the turkey and shake a few hands while being protected by the biggest most sophisticated military in the world, then bugger off home. But how is Harper going to pull that off? He'd have to take an Air Canada flight to London, transfer to an Air India flight to the immediate neighbourhood, then take a bus (or scarier than a bus - a Sea King helicopter).

I think the Canadian troops are doing a great job there, but I don't think they need the added responsibility of keeping their political master from being blown up or beheaded.

In a rational universe, certain relationships are immutably true. Like:

If A > B and B > C
then A > C

The universe ceases to be rational when all of the following hold true:

A > B and B > C and C > A

In a rational universe, these three statements cannot be simultaneously true, and that is why Western values and Islamic values are incompatible.

Take a look at the following table. Each item in the column is listed in descending order of "badness". e.g.

• Stealing for personal gain is worse than Stealing to feed your family.
• Premeditated murder is worse than killing accidentally

The table above is not a complete list, but I think it will serve our purpose. The column on the left is basically my personal ranking of bad. It may look familiar to you. It bears a striking resemblance to rankings used by British common law and it includes most of the components of the 10 commandments. I've seen rabid Christians make the statement that an atheist couldn't possible know right from wrong because all ethics flow only from God. Fundamentalist bullshit, obviously. I'm an atheist and I would no sooner choose to commit murder than to put out my own eye.

George Bush seems to be having his own problems with the placement of torture on his personal list. And the conduct of war makes collateral damage (negligent death) a more common occurrence than I think any of us should be comfortable with.

But, somewhere on the list one must draw a line and say -- everything above this line is absolutely wrong; below the line is just not nice. I would draw this line somewhere around lying.

Now, the column on the right is an imputed list of extremist muslim beliefs. It is imputed from the behaviour that we see from individuals, governments and imams. I'm not even sure how extreme a muslim must be to hold to this ranking ... over the cartoon flap, our local paper quoted a local muslim grocer as saying "the image of Mohammed is more important than the lives of his children".

Rape is apparently a low ranking crime, since an accusation of rape by a woman cannot be taken seriously, since before the Koran the testimony of a woman is worth half that of a man. Rape is used as a balancing tool in restoring family honour. The usual outcome of a rape is that the raped woman is stoned to death because she has brought dishonour to her family and her village.

Beating your wife, well, that's not even wrong. It is a man's right.

And we know that extremists draw the line for themselves very high indeed. They see no contradiction with their faith in capturing and beheading innocents, or using suicide bombings in whatever random crowd is handy.

So Sharia law must never be allowed to take root in counties where the law is based on British common law. Drawing a picture of god or the prophets would not even be on my list of bads. Eating pork is only on my list as a nod to the vegetarians. But these two things are more important to muslims then even murder. These two views of right and wrong cannot be reconciled.

So have you ever wondered why there are so few Muslim comics? Seems Muslims can't take a joke.

This world wide riot over the publishing of some Mohammed cartoons does prove a number of things.

• As Barbara Amiel says in this weeks Macleans "it doesn't take much to set off a Muslim riot".
• Freedom of expression is a very important right here in the west that must be guarded against all challenges.

But more than anything else, it proves that there are a lot of stupid people in the world.

I'm not saying all Muslims are stupid, but as Forrest Gump's mother said, "Stupid is as Stupid does". I believe the vast majority of Muslims are not going to take to the street and start a dust-up over such a perceived slight. But the ones that do will fall into one of two groups:

1. The stupid
2. And the trouble makers

And really, the stupid are probably not so much stupid as uneducated. There was a time (1500 years ago) when the Arab world was the most advanced society. But somewhere along the way, that world turned its back on science, math, philosophy and free-thinking and replaced it with navel-gazing religious orthodoxy. The only education permitted comes from rote memorization of the Koran, if you are male, or no education at all if you are female. So, when the trouble-maker comes along and says "you have been insulted so you must kill these people", you grab your hammer and gasoline and start breaking and burning things.

The key to bridging the culture gap is to increase education (real education, not mullah school), and in particular education of women.

Muslims that receive a liberal western education know that one can internally separate society and faith. With that understanding comes the ability to understand a joke. Jews certainly know how to tell and receive a joke. Christians don't riot when they see an image of Christ -- even an offensive one. Muslims think they are being picked on if a joke is made at their expense and actually believe that jokes are made only at their expense. This is patently untrue, and if they were more world aware, they would know this to be untrue. Even Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's "holocaust cartoon contest" is a non-starter. Do you think the Jews didn't have some black-humour cartoons even during the holocaust?

To help broaden the Muslim's view of religious humour, I offer up this website I found while looking for the Mohammed cartoons online:
Atheist T-Shirts -- an equal opportunity offender of religious sensibilities.

Enjoy, and start laughing.

So Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's new president, has stated publicly that the Jews should be moved from greater Palestine to Alaska. Macleans has dubbed Mahmoud the scariest man on Earth.

Mahmoud's thesis is that Europe needed to atone for the halocaust, so they relented and gave into the Zionists, giving Palestine to the Jews. Since Europe/U.S.A. had no right to give away Palestine, since it happened to be occupied by Palestinians at the time, they should have put the Jews somewhere else.

Now that reminds me of a funny story. About 10 years ago, I came up with my own solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. At the time there was a particularly large amount of trouble in the region. Hezzbola, or Hamas, or whatever militant P-group was inflicting significant carnage in the I-group. The I-group was responding by large shows of deadly force, and the bulldozing of the homes of families of the dead P-group combatants.

It was obvious to me that these two groups could not occupy the same piece of geography. Exactly why these people could not live together was beyond my comprehension. To my western eyes, they were indistinguishable, big nosed, swarthy people. Take away their ridiculous costumes and there was nothing to tell them apart.

So here was the solution I had proposed at the time. It was meant as a joke -- the type of joke that begins by looking over your shoulder to see who might be listening. But the more I thought about it, the more sense it made.

Jerusalem is the cradle of the three major world religions. So, to make peace in the region, you do the following:

• You move the Jews to Arizona, or Utah or Wyoming.
• You move the Arabs to Afghanistan
• You give Isreal to the Disney corporation who runs the area as a religious theme park.

Ta da! The perfect solution.

Isreal is a tiny little place. Just a crappy little piece of desert. The American west and Afghanistan are huge, largely uninhabited, crappy pieces of desert. So, for the Jews and Arabs it would be an even trade. And then Muslims, Jews and Christians would be free to visit the holy land, in the comfort of 5-star resort facilities, run as only Disney can. Get your E-ticket to the ascension; see the burning bush; have a bacon sandwich at Temple rock.

So, I don't know, but I think Mahmoud is onto something there.

What exactly was the original purpose of the Young Offenders Act? I always believed it was to give youths a second chance to put themselves on the path to being a useful citizen. Young people start with the handicaps of youth:

• Their brains are not fully developed.
• They believe they are immortal.
• Their bodies are coursing with hormones.
• They may not have developed a fully functioning understanding of right and wrong
• They may not have good role models
• They may fall in with a bad crowd.

So, you make allowances for them to make mistakes. You don't want to ruin their adult lives because of some stupid thing they do, like breaking a window, or stealing an ipod. A criminal record might ruin an otherwise productive life.

So you set it up such that their identities are protected; their sentences are lighter, and served at reformatories rather than prisons.

This makes sense, yes? So when did the system morph into something where gang-bangers can sell drugs, carry guns, do violent crimes including murder, and all they get is a slap on the wrist. The justice system puts them back on the street multiple times where they are unsupervised and offend again and again. [The accused in the Boxing Day shoot-out was out on bail after having appeared before the courts 3 times, all charges still in progress.]

And the law is schitzophrenic on the topic. Rapists, violent assault, serial property offences ... everytime they appear in the paper it's "the name of the youth and his family have been withheld under the young offenders act". So, unidentified, charged but unconvicted, they are released into the unsuspecting community.

But, the "law" has also been trying to get Helmut Oberlander deported to Germany for decades for lying about his involvement with the SS in World War II. He was a 15 year old soldier, acting as a translator for one of the more unpleasant branches of Hitler's war machine -- He didn't ever actually perform any violence. His guilt is just of association. Like, a 15 year old could have stood up to Nazi conscription. He would have been killed.

Yet, 60 years later, Parliament is still wasting taxpayer money trying to get this old-man deported. In the mean-time, we have today today's 15 year-olds wantonly spraying bullets around and killing at will -- and we are prepared to slap them on the wrist.

One more example: Omar Khadr - 15 year old combatant in Afghanistan - chucks a grenade at advancing U.S. soldiers. He is wounded, captured and sent to Guantanamo Bay where he spends 2 years in custody, uncharged. He is now charged with murder. Like, when a soldier kills somebody it is somehow "murder".
But, if he were to do the same thing in downtown Calgary, he'd be home by the weekend hanging with his buddies, unidentified and looking for trouble.

How does any of this make sense?

Let me begin by stating my opinion on the celebrated Khadr family:

The elder Khadr's were naturalized Canadian citizens for over 25 years, and in that time they brought into the world a handful of Canadian babies. However, in all of those years they never adopted Canadian values. Quite the opposite, they became jihadists of the highest order.

The Khadr family are close personal friends of Osama bin Laden and had spent several years residing at his private compound in Afghanistan. The boy children attended the terrorist training camps. The elder Mr. Khadr got himself killed in a fire-fight with American troops and got his youngest son wounded by the American army.

Mrs. Khadr returned to Canada for medical help for her wounded child (because health care in Canada is excellent and free). But while her son was receiving the best care in the world, Mrs. Khadr and her daughter were frequently "seen" in the burkha bags on television giving interviews saying what a wonderful man bin Laden was; what a great thing 9/11 was; and what a crap country Canada and the U.S. were.

The Khadr's used Canada as their personal safe-house, while taking all that Canada had to offer. They moved freely around the world on the respected Canadian passports. But they hate us, and wish us death. What a bunch of psychopaths.

Some say that we should revoke their citizenship and deport them. But I don't agree. I agree with our local Member of Parliament (Andrew Telegdi) that citizenship should not be dispensed with so lightly. They are Canadian citizens, and are entitled to all the rights that citizenship entails. The fact that they have not taken the responsibilities of citizenship to heart should be dealt with otherwise.

If they are behaving criminally, they should be jailed.
If they are trafficing in and spewing hate, then CSIS should be so far up Mrs. Khadr's ass that they should know when she is hungry before she does. CSIS should then apply the criminal justice system to deal with them when they cross the line.
If they were just behaving as intolerant bigots, they should be goaded into conforming to Canadian values, or shunned.

But what was my point on the trial? Oh yeah.
The military trial started today at Gitmo. And what happened on the first day? The judge castigated Omar Khadr for showing up in jeans and a t-shirt. The judge said that his apparel showed insufficient respect for the court and ordered him to dress better tomorrow.

Well, he's been living in an orange prison jump-suit at gitmo for the last two years. Where was he supposed to get a respectable suit and tie? Should he have nipped over to the Santiago de Cuba Banana Republic?
If he was to be dressed suitably, shouldn't that have been the responsibility of his American lawyer?
Christ, if the American military tribunal wants a show of respect, maybe they should show some respect for human rights and international law.

But, as ThePessimist, I don't see that as likely.