Police waste taxes on Olympic ticket scam

The police should not be wasting our taxes settling scores between crooks:

West Vancouver police have issued a Canada-wide warrant for a man alleged to have collected over $60,000 in an Internet Winter Olympics ticket scam.

The way I figure is that if I make a deal with a thief to buy stolen property from him and that deal goes sour, at the very minimum I deserve to take the loss. The Olympics were held on stolen land.

The fools who gambled their money buying tickets from Sean McConnell Stuart through Craigslist and Kijiji should pay for their own frivolous security by getting insurance on their purchases.

RE TSA Insanity

I have but one question: Why are we not following the Israeli model?

Update Nov 20, 2010: Israel’s top 10 airport security technologies (H/T). These plus 80-15-5 should certainly do the trick.

Trace-Safe from Israel and Raptor from the US have co-developed a chemical process, called TraceGuard, which can free particles from fabric and luggage for speedy detection and analysis.

The technology detects harmful substances and not benign ones like perfume or pharmaceuticals. It doesn’t show false alarms, doesn’t need filters or a cleaning. “You only want to detect the substances that you can make explosives or biological agents out of,” says Sela.

It can be integrated into scanners and magnetometers and also into a wand that can be passed over both people and luggage.

Update Nov 22, 2010. Via Drudge, strip searching young children. But – hey! – at least we’re not “racist,” like those hateful Joos, right?

Soviet-Gitmo style interrogation coming to Canada

Great news for the Law And Order Control Freak Socialist types.

Tories Deny NRA Involvement in Scrapping Gun Registry

Or so the CBC says.

In other news, Tories continue to deny that they beat their wives.

The purpose of the gun registry – part 2

In the previous entry (below), I linked to an article at National Post that described how police chiefs will unanimously endorse a “national firearms strategy,” a key component of which is the long gun registry. I also argue the main purpose of the gun registry is to assist with the seizure of long guns, and that police are spending too much time harassing long gun owners when the real threats to public and police safety are left alone.

Now, from the Canadian National Firearms Association:

It has come to the attention of Canada’s National Firearms Association that the political police chief heads of law enforcement associations are planning a nation wide blitz against licensed firearms owners, as retribution for the political action of the Canadian firearms community that has resulted in the final vote in parliament of Manitoba MP Candice Hoeppner’s Bill C-391. [...]* All paperwork offenses will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, despite the current limited federal government amnesty which ends in May 2011.

* Home inspections will be performed on an ever increasing basis on firearms owners with more than ten registered firearms, and all restricted and prohibited firearms owners.

* Registered firearms will be seized despite their legal use or status, with the onus put on their owners to navigate the firearms bureaucracy and legal system in order to retrieve them.  Furthermore, CACP will lobby for a national handgun ban, the confiscation of all registered handguns in Canada, and the reclassification of all semi automatic firearms as “Restricted” or “Prohibited” firearms.

CACP lobbyist Bill Blair’s record as Chief of the Toronto Police Service is an indication of the treatment by law enforcement he wishes to impose on all Canadians. As Chief of Police, Bill Blair ordered Toronto Police Service to target senior citizens and confiscate their firearms for paperwork offenses, and conduct a campaign of harassment against anyone with a firearms license and a registered firearm. (Emphasis mine.)

Is it any wonder police are seizing more long guns than handguns each year?

The purpose of the gun registry

The cops have admitted publicly and jointly that the gun registry is not a crime fighting tool. Contra Alan Rock and the gun control lobby, it never has been nor could it ever be used for that purpose.

Its updated purpose, paraphrasing Toronto police chief Bill Blair — public safety, officer safety and seizure.

“It’s not a matter of ideology for us. It’s a matter of public safety. It’s just a matter of officer safety,” Chief Blair said.

Of the last 16 officers shot to death in Canada, 14 were killed with long guns, he said, adding long guns represent the majority of guns seized by officers nationwide.

Sorry, Bill, I’m not buying your safety claim. If police couldn’t use the tool to prevent the deaths of their own then it is highly doubtful it can be used to prevent the deaths of anyone else either. A tool that can’t be used to prevent or fight crime cannot be relied upon to enhance police and public safety. What is more, public safety does not necessarily follow from police safety.

The seizure of long guns, though? That definitely sounds like the primary purpose of the gun registry because it’s really the only area in which it is halfway effective, isn’t it? It tells police whose registrations have expired and then the badges can go and harass the otherwise law-abiding citizen to re-register or relinquish the firearm. Like Joe Fiorito.

The problem is, Bill, pouring all that effort into seizing long guns is to ignore the real threat to public and police safety. Stats Can reported in 2008 that, in 2006, gun-related crime “remained steady,” i.e. did not decrease, and handguns were used in two-thirds of all gun-related crime and were used three times as much as long guns in homicides. Yet year over year police are collecting more long guns than handguns.

What this means is police are spending way too much time harassing law-abiding long gun owners and not enough time and resources conquering the main threat to police and public safety — illicit handguns in the hands of gangs, drug lords, pimps and organized crime. The gun registry is a distraction to police, providing an easy way to enforce a point of law that has little to no effect on police or public safety while conveniently ignoring the more difficult elements of law enforcement that would result in increased safety for one and all. Elephant, room. Deck chairs, Titanic. That sort of stuff.

If safety and crime fighting and crime prevention are the goals, as they should be, police need to rid themselves of the distraction that is the gun registry. We are under no illusions that the gun registry is making anything safer. That’s why the people are demanding the government kill it.

Book’em Dano…

Then “book” them. No? Lucky bastards, and the tragedy is, they probably don’t understand why.

So the Toronto Police has managed, with overwhelming public support, to identify, locate and arrest 7 more criminals from the G20 Most Wanted List. They have assured the public that the search continues, and they will eventually track down and arrest everyone they are looking for.

So, the newly added names as of July 19th are:

Six men and a male youth are facing mischief charges in connection with property damage inflicting during G20 Summit protests last month….

…Andrew Loughrin, 23, of Toronto, Michael Corbett, 29, of Toronto, Brian O’Handley, 19, of Toronto and Robert Kainola, 24, of Toronto are each facing mischief charges.

Kurt Roarco, 22, of no fixed address is facing a mischief charge, an arson charge and failing to comply with probation.

Jeffrey Delaney, 23, of Toronto is facing a mischief charge and an attempted theft charge.

Of course, under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, anyone under the age of 18 can’t be named, hence the “youth”. Maybe I’m wrong, but if he/she is old enough to decide to take those kinds of actions on their own, they’re certainly “old enough” to deal with the publicity. They certainly weren’t shy about getting out in front of Toronto and the world and making asses of themselves.

This was in addition to arrests made on July 16th:

Police said Friday they have laid charges of assault, mischief and theft over $5,000 against Cody Caplette, 21, and Phillip Lee, 28. Both men are Toronto residents

And earlier:

Peter Hopperton is one of about 20 people identified as part of a police investigation into activities of people planning violent G20 action.

Police allege Hopperton is a member of the Southern Ontario Anarchist Resistance.

William Vandreil also got bail today, with his set at $50,000.

As well as this:

A man caught on tape damaging a police car was arrested July 14 after turning himself into police with his lawyer. He was one of six people identified after images of vandals were released on July 7. Three were identified within 12 hours.

Ashran Ravindhraj, 25, of Toronto, was charged with arson and two counts of mischief over $5,000 in relation to damage done to a police scout car on June 25.

I don’t know if these thugs truly appreciate how lucky they are that we live in a country that respects the rule of law, even if they do not. They are safe in our jails, they are safe from the public, and they are safe from vigilantes.

Now, I’m sure that in the days ahead we will hear all sorts of weepy, tear-jerking stories about how hard of a life these guys had. The “hug-a-thug” crowd will try to make a case that their anger and violent behaviour is actually the fault of society insofar that society as a whole has failed them and didn’t provide them with sufficient opportunity blah blah blah….pardon me while I puke.

Too harsh? I don’t think so. In fact, I think that’s part of the problem.

Too often we (the afore mentioned “society”), do not speak out hard or loud enough to condemn this kind of behaviour and give quarter and sufferance to those who would seek to place the blame anywhere but upon the shoulders of the individuals who made the choice to take the violent route, knowing full well that such behaviour is wrong. They’re not 2 year old infants who haven’t developed the reasoning skills necessary to determine the difference between right and wrong.

I’m all for throwing the book at them. Charge them, and if found guilty, punish them to the full extent of the law. The message needs to be sent loud and clear across the land: This kind of behaviour is unacceptable in this country, and those who engage in such lawless activities will face the full force of our justice system.

Contrary to popular belief (albeit with good reason through demonstration in recent history), our Justice System actually does have teeth. Unfortunately, thanks to the hug-a-thug loons out there, it’s considered uncivilized for it to bear it’s teeth and take a bite out of crime. No no no, we can’t have our justice system feared! How déclassé! To think that there are those who believe that criminals and deviants should fear the consequences of their actions! How barbaric! No no, let us take them into our arms, show them that they are loved and have value…[end sarc]… good lord, I think I’m going to puke again.

There is right, and there is wrong. Sure there’s shades of grey, but really, grey is still dirtier than white. There are also consequences for actions. These, dare I say men, knew that they were acting in the wrong and they need to know those consequences. I can’t dream of any excuse for what they and others did that day other than a desire to be violent.

I’m disgusted by their actions, nearly to the point of physical illness. And I’m not alone.

Accommodating Honour Murder

With Aqsa Parvez finally resting peacefully, her murderers — her very own father and brother — sentenced to the Canadian-style “life in prison” with no chance of parole for 18 years, it’s time for the religious equivalence and multiculturalist types to step forward again and declare that “honour killing,” which I more accurately define as honour murder, is not just Islam’s problem.

Ujjal Dosanjh, Liberal MP – it’s the bloody patriarchy, stupid!

There is a huge misconception that these crimes occur because of certain religious beliefs. There is no religion that condones the murder of women. It’s the feudal/patriarchal culture of male dominance and control that’s the culprit.

Dr. Amin Muhammad, Professor of Psychiatry at Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador – it’s not just Islam, stupid!

While many recent cases in Western society involve Muslims, Dr. Muhammad said honour killings have also been committed in the name of Hinduism, Sikhism and Christianity.

To which I say: While it may be true that “honour killings have also been committed in the name of Hinduism, Sikhism and Christianity,” the numbers pale in comparison to the thousands of females murdered each year around the world in the name of Islam for the sake of family honour.

United Nations Population Fund:

Throughout the world, perhaps as many as 5,000 women and girls a year are murdered by members of their own families, many of them for the “dishonour” of having been raped, often as not by a member of their own extended family.

It is dishonest at best to survey the numbers of honour murders committed by Muslims, along with the allowances for honour murder within the legal structures of Islamic nations, such as Syria, Pakistan, Yemen and Afghanistan, which can be seen as a tacit endorsement of the practice, and then suggest equivalency among faiths when a handful of honour murders are committed by members of other faiths. Honour murder is a much greater problem for Islam than it is for other faiths and it is ludicrous to even suggest otherwise.

As for endorsement within religious texts, Dosanjh and Muhammed are correct that no religion condones honour murder per se, but they should have been more careful to point out the caveats under Islam that have led to the widespread acceptance of honour murder within Islamic tradition. As an example, Christianity, the faith I know best, provides no justification whatsoever to murder one’s own children or one’s wife, whereas the Qur’an Sura 18 arguably allows for the killing of children not even your own as long as you’ve accurately determined a child will grow up as a non-believer. (How that determination is made, I have no clue.)

Does honour murder occur in other faiths? Yes. Under which faith is it most prevalent, by far? Islam. Which nations tacitly endorse the practice through caveats of law? Islamic nations. That’s the point that must be accepted before reform can be realized, and it’s the critical point that Dosanjh and others prefer to gloss over to our collective detriment.

I credit Dosanjh in one respect, though; his reference to the role political correctness in shaping the response to honour murder.

… political correctness prevents us from demanding that the cultural norms that justify such heinous practices as honour killings have no place anywhere in the world. We must never be too sensitive to call a spade a spade.

As if on cue, some on the pro-dhimmi side are already suggesting Canadian judges should take “cultural practices,” such as honour killing, into consideration out of respect for (I say genuflection at the altar of) multiculturalism. Scaramouche, via Mark Steyn:

John Oakley is seriously entertaining the question of whether Canadian judges should give those who commit “honour” killings a break because they have different “cultural practices” and may not be aware of our norms and laws; defence attorney Lawrence Ben-Eliezer thinks judges should  take these differences into consideration because we have “multiculturalism”.

Canadians, of course, are already aware of what “taking these differences into consideration” means: preferential treatment of en vogue “victim” groups of the political left. What Canadians are less aware of, in my opinion, is the tangible threat posed to Western society by ardent multiculturalism, our Achilles heel.

Sobering Question

Dennis Prager:

The reason mankind has to hope that the world, its leaders, its newspapers, its so-called human-rights organizations, and the United Nations are right about Israel is quite simple: If Israel is the decent party in its war with the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, and nearly all the world’s countries, nearly all the world’s media, and the United Nations are morally wrong, what hope is there for humanity? If the world’s moral compass is that broken, are we not sailing into a dark age?

Flotilla babies

(Welcome SDA readers. Be sure to digest the final link, particularly if you’re Canadian. -MP)

The MSM and blogs lit up yesterday over the “Jenin on the high seas,” as Jonathan Kay so aptly put it. Today, another prime morsel from CBC:

Turkish woman Nilufer Cetin said she agreed to be extradited from Israel after being warned jail conditions in Be’er Sheva would be “too harsh” for her one-year-old baby, whom she’d brought on the voyage. (Emphasis mine.)

Now, there are a whole slew of possible reasons why Ms. Cetin brought along her one-year-old.

Perhaps she didn’t trust her day care provider(s) to give better care for her child than she could give on flotilla bound for Gaza in spite of numerous serious warnings that the passage would not occur.

Perhaps the father of the child is an “activist” in Gaza and this was an excellent opportunity to let him see his son for the first time.

Perhaps the father of the child is an “activist” in Turkey who fondly dreams of his entire family becoming martyrs in the global jihad against the Great Satan and the Evil Jooos. (And who could pass up the opportunity to shmooze with a few Islamic nutbar big-wigs?)

Perhaps she thought she was on a tour of the Mediterranean and would simply be passing by Gaza on a $50 sightseeing, pictures-from-the-boat excursion instead of plowing full-on into Israeli forces.

But perhaps, just perhaps, she knew full well the dangers, presumed violence would occur and, like her “activist” Arabs brothers and sisters in Gaza and the West Bank, decided to put the child between herself and the evil Jooos and presume upon the moral integrity of the Israeli soldiers who would be getting a drubbing at the hands of her colleagues or thrown 30 feet between decks of the vessel.

The most logical explanation of how this one-year-old ended up on one of those vessels: human shield.

Update: 100 or more of the “activists” are jihadists and were recruited by “the same IHH handler who organized the flotilla.” One wonders if said IHH handler also encouraged Ms. Cetin to bring her child.

Update+: You can’t make this up. Ties to a Montreal terrorist cell.

The day before Israeli commandos stormed the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish ship leading a blockade-busting mission to Gaza, passengers were chanting an Islamic battle cry and singing songs reminiscent of the Palestinian Intifada.

One woman aboard the ship told an Al-Jazeera reporter the goal was “one of two happy endings: either martyrdom or reaching Gaza.” [...]

The latest flotilla was organized by the Free Gaza Movement and IHH, a Turkish humanitarian organization that has also been linked to weapons trafficking and a Montreal terrorist cell.

Update ++: Your must read for today — Peter Hitchens, “The Joys of Selective Outrage.” He’s better at the media game than his notorious brother. Some scrumptious bits:

The interesting thing is that [Modern Leftism's] outrage is so selective and inconsistent. This has long been so, and arises from the fact that the Left still hasn’t worked out how to replace the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount, and so makes its ideas of good and evil up as it goes along. [...]

Another of my favourite Leftist inconsistencies is the tangle they get themselves in over Islam and Israel. In their universe Islam is good where it challenges the conservative Christian monoculture of Britain and the USA. Islam is bad when it denounces homosexuality and demands the veiling of women, and generally opposes the sexual revolution which is the main concern and aim of the modern left. Islam is good when it pursues its unrelenting war against Israel. It’s bad when, in the mythical form of ‘Al Qaeda’ or the more tangible form of the Taliban, it ‘hates our way of life’ and opposes the education of women, etc etc.

Islam’s attack on Israel (in the Islamic world) often takes rather unpleasant forms. Muslim clerics say things there that would get them drummed out of civilised society here. But Israel is the country everyone in Europe loves to hate – while making it clear that this loathing has nothing, nothing at all, to do with the fact that Israel is a Jewish state. Good heavens no. The very idea. How could you even think such a thing? Anti-Semite? Me? Etc etc. Well, no doubt these protestations are true, which is why I try to popularise the word ‘Judophobic’ instead. Call someone an anti-Semite and he will instantly and huffily say that he’s of course not Adolf Eichmann or that bad man in ‘Schindler’s List’. So he can’t be against Jews, let alone an anti-Semite. The very idea.

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