Mere weeks after Conservative Party MP Stephen Woodworth called for a renewed public debate on abortion, another bombshell has landed that has made the subject impossible to ignore.
Writing in an editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, Dr Rajendra Kale has warned that abortion for the purpose of sex selection is happening in Canada. He suggests it may be prevalent among Asian immigrants to Canada. It's a common practice in India and China, where parents prefer having boys over having girls.
Of course, the question that Kale is asking are forbidden on more than one count. Not only is he asking questions about abortion -- forbidden by those most invested in Canada's lawless abortion status quo -- he's also asking hard questions about multiculturalism.
That's what the far-left considers a double no-no.
What's bound to infuriate the far-left most is that the kind of Charter arguments they favour -- using the equality provisions of the Charter to attempt to empower their agenda on a Constitutional basis -- against the abortion-related status quo.
“It really works against everything we believe in Canada in terms of equality. It works against our Charter [of Rights and Freedoms],” explains University of Toronto bioethicist Kerry Bowman. “At very least, it would be fair to ask why a couple wants to know the gender of their child ... because that in itself is not directly linked to the health or well-being of the child, except in rare cases of sex-linked diseases or disorders.”
To make matters even more concerning, UBC economist Kevin Milligan has identified, via analyzing census data, an unnaturally high prevalence of male births in areas with large South and East Asian immigrant populations. And those pattenns of male births? Yeah, they're consistent with those in areas in Asia where sex-selection abortion is practiced.
Of course this isn't supposed to be happening in Canada. We aren't supposed to discriminate against women or girls in Canada, regardless of whether that discrimination is taking place before or after birth.
Of course, there are those who are going to insist that it's those who are now raising questions about sex-selection abortion who are being discriminatory. I fully expect to be called racist over this -- it's the typical impotent response offered by those who have nothing else to say.
But they'll have a far more difficult time making that argument about Dr Rajendra Kale. He was born in Mumbai.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Sunday, January 15, 2012
The Far-Left's Great Varmint Hunt Leads Right Back to Them
Ever since Hillary Clinton made a reference to Saul Alinsky -- on whom she had written a thesis during university -- many conservatives have taken to examining the conduct of the far-left through an Alinskyite lens.
Famously, one of Alinsky's missives for the left was to always accuse their opponents of what the left themselves are doing.
What else could be at the core of the far-left's great varmint hunt centering around the Ethical Oil institute?
It began when CBC's Evan Solomon countered questions being asked by Ethical Oil spokesperson Kathryn Marshall about where the anti-oilsands movement is getting its money from. More and more, it's getting its money from outside the country. Solomon's question was whether or not EEI has received any money from Enbridge.
Solomon seemed to overlook the detail that Enbridge is a Canadian company. And sensing that they have nothing on their hands that will resonate outside the far-left echo chamber, they've instead taken to hunting for evidence a vast right-wing conspiracy.
And in order to do that, they've dug further into Marshall's personal life. What they've come up with is a shocking revelation that Kathryn Marshall is married to Hamish Marshall, who is a member of the Conservative Party Federal Council.
The far-left is feigning the vapours over this, but it's not really all that shocking at all. Nor is it really what they portray it is.
The Conservative Party stands nearly alone as the sole supporter and defender of the Canadian jobs the oilsands provide. It's not at all shocking that someone married to a Conservative Party official would also support the oil sands, and work with an organization that shares that common goal.
But perhaps the reason why the far-left has become so focused on this is because they honestly believe that conservatives do the same things they do: create elaborate front groups for their partisan political machinations, and expect people to see them as politically independent.
Take, for example, their favourite "news outlet", Rabble.ca. The site is almost dementedly far-left, a place where nearly any marginal far-left agenda can vent its spleen for the whole world to read -- although in all likelihood, comparatively few do.
One of their contributors is none other than David Climenhaga, a man who once described the Sun News Network as "Conservative Pravda", which is amusing considering that he's a contributor to a "news outlet" that is pretty much... well, Pravda. Just Pravda. Yeah.
The punchline is that Rabble.ca was co-founded by a woman by the name of Kim Elliott. Who is Kim Elliott? Well, among other things, she's NDP MP Libby Davies' life partner.
Is this enough evidence to proclaim Rabble.ca a front group for the NDP? In the minds of the far-left, it is.
The remarkable thing about Rabble.ca is that it's done a remarkable job of pretending to be a media outlet. They've even placed their own correspondent on Parliament Hill. They describe his reporting as "just reporting, not just reporting".
In other words, their correspondent reports stories that reflect Rabble.ca's interpretation of justice, which so often turns out to be justice for them, no justice for anyone else.
By the way, Rabble.ca's Parliament Hill correspondent is Karl Nerenberg.
All of this begs a question of how precisely one identifies a political front group. Perhaps the mere relation of one member of a particular organization through marriage isn't enough to define a front group.
The better way to judge a front group is by how devoted they are to the partisan interests of the political party in question. And there is no doubt Rabble.ca is relentlessly devoted to the partisan interests of the NDP.
Which is why the federal press gallery should waste no time in expelling Karl Nerenberg from the press gallery as quickly as they can. After all, it's not like he's there to do any actual news reporting.
Famously, one of Alinsky's missives for the left was to always accuse their opponents of what the left themselves are doing.
What else could be at the core of the far-left's great varmint hunt centering around the Ethical Oil institute?
It began when CBC's Evan Solomon countered questions being asked by Ethical Oil spokesperson Kathryn Marshall about where the anti-oilsands movement is getting its money from. More and more, it's getting its money from outside the country. Solomon's question was whether or not EEI has received any money from Enbridge.
Solomon seemed to overlook the detail that Enbridge is a Canadian company. And sensing that they have nothing on their hands that will resonate outside the far-left echo chamber, they've instead taken to hunting for evidence a vast right-wing conspiracy.
And in order to do that, they've dug further into Marshall's personal life. What they've come up with is a shocking revelation that Kathryn Marshall is married to Hamish Marshall, who is a member of the Conservative Party Federal Council.
The far-left is feigning the vapours over this, but it's not really all that shocking at all. Nor is it really what they portray it is.
The Conservative Party stands nearly alone as the sole supporter and defender of the Canadian jobs the oilsands provide. It's not at all shocking that someone married to a Conservative Party official would also support the oil sands, and work with an organization that shares that common goal.
But perhaps the reason why the far-left has become so focused on this is because they honestly believe that conservatives do the same things they do: create elaborate front groups for their partisan political machinations, and expect people to see them as politically independent.
Take, for example, their favourite "news outlet", Rabble.ca. The site is almost dementedly far-left, a place where nearly any marginal far-left agenda can vent its spleen for the whole world to read -- although in all likelihood, comparatively few do.
One of their contributors is none other than David Climenhaga, a man who once described the Sun News Network as "Conservative Pravda", which is amusing considering that he's a contributor to a "news outlet" that is pretty much... well, Pravda. Just Pravda. Yeah.
The punchline is that Rabble.ca was co-founded by a woman by the name of Kim Elliott. Who is Kim Elliott? Well, among other things, she's NDP MP Libby Davies' life partner.
Is this enough evidence to proclaim Rabble.ca a front group for the NDP? In the minds of the far-left, it is.
In other words, their correspondent reports stories that reflect Rabble.ca's interpretation of justice, which so often turns out to be justice for them, no justice for anyone else.
By the way, Rabble.ca's Parliament Hill correspondent is Karl Nerenberg.
All of this begs a question of how precisely one identifies a political front group. Perhaps the mere relation of one member of a particular organization through marriage isn't enough to define a front group.
The better way to judge a front group is by how devoted they are to the partisan interests of the political party in question. And there is no doubt Rabble.ca is relentlessly devoted to the partisan interests of the NDP.
Which is why the federal press gallery should waste no time in expelling Karl Nerenberg from the press gallery as quickly as they can. After all, it's not like he's there to do any actual news reporting.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Star Still Offside
Somehow, I'm starting to doubt if Toronto Star editor Kathy English knows very much about the 1972 Summit Series at all.
In a mea culpa noting that there was no truth to the Star's report that Prime Minister Stephen Harper would be facing Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in a commemorative hockey game, English pens the following:
The problem? The "goal heard around the world" wasn't scored in game seven. It was scored in game eight.
Remarkably, Paul Henderson did score the winning goal in game seven. And game six. In fact, the only other Canadian player with a game winning goal was Yvan Cournoyer. But Henderson's game seven-winning goal, while his personal favourite, was not the goal heard around the world. That goal came in game eight, when he sank the Soviet Red Machine.
Much of this is just trivia. But the Toronto Star's lack of editorial oversight? That's not trivial at all.
In a mea culpa noting that there was no truth to the Star's report that Prime Minister Stephen Harper would be facing Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in a commemorative hockey game, English pens the following:
Remarkably, Paul Henderson did score the winning goal in game seven. And game six. In fact, the only other Canadian player with a game winning goal was Yvan Cournoyer. But Henderson's game seven-winning goal, while his personal favourite, was not the goal heard around the world. That goal came in game eight, when he sank the Soviet Red Machine.
Much of this is just trivia. But the Toronto Star's lack of editorial oversight? That's not trivial at all.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Swapping Apples & Oranges
CBC's Evan Solomon is the worst magician ever.
On a recent edition of Power and Politics, Solomon made a decision: to take the side of Sierra Club executive director John Bennett against Ethical Oil Institute spokesperson Kathryn Marshall. In doing so, he attempted a magic trick:
He would take an apple -- Marshall's reference to the generous foreign funding enjoyed by environmental groups attempting to block the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline -- make it disappear, and as with all good magic tricks, make it reappear.
There was just one problem: when Solomon made the apple reappear, it was an orange. But he and Bennett tried to pretend it was still an apple.
Solomon countered Marshall's comments about the foreign funding enjoyed by these environmental groups by asking if the Ethical Oil institute received any funding from Enbridge.
The unintentional punchline is that Enbridge is a Canadian company.
Oops.
Of course, the next trick in the far-left anti-oil sands arsenal is then to attempt to write off the Ethical Oil institute as corporate shills. See, in the eyes of the far-left, even Canadian corporations are inherently evil and villainous, no matter what. Even if they're Canadian.
So then they'll try to make the issue about that: a classic bait-and-switch tactic.
Naturally, it never occurs to them that Enbridge might be donating to the Ethical Oil institute because they share common values, and because the work of the Ethical Oil institute is already beneficial to them.
Heaven forbid corporations donate money to organizations that share their values.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
The Square Root of Jackassery...
...is jackassery. Tony Clement was being dumb, so was the kid. The difference is that we expect this kind of silliness out of kids.
All the same, 15-year-old Keith Pettinger seems to be passing his audition to be the next Brigette DePape... and he's already thrice as relevant!
All the same, 15-year-old Keith Pettinger seems to be passing his audition to be the next Brigette DePape... and he's already thrice as relevant!
Sunday, January 8, 2012
There's No Demagoguery Quite Like Fantasy-/Fear-based Demagoguery...
...and David Climenhaga specializes in both
Sometimes the best way to to tell what really stings a far-left ideologue is what they pretend to dismiss.
And the reason it stings is because it's so true. And they know it.
That seemed to be the case recently when Rabble.ca cartoon character David Climenhaga made a wry reference to a Bad Company blogpost pointing out his fearmongering demagoguery related to the long gun registry.
I'm sure readers remember, but just in case you don't, a reminder: Climenhaga dropped a suggestion that abolishing the handgun registry is next on the Harper government's agenda. His evidence? Well, he has no evidence.
For good reason. It's hard to have evidence that something is on the agenda when it's unequivocally not on the agenda.
In reality, Climenhaga knows what he's doing. The left has exploited guns as their favourite wedge issue for decades in Canada, and he's doing what he can to try to keep that wedge issue alive. He does it badly, but he does his best. Which is sad when you think about it.
Today, on the one-year anniversary of the shooting of US Democratic congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Climenhaga is back at it again. And like any other cartoon character, he's predictable. He's once again peddling the far-left myth that the lunatic who took aim at Giffords was set off by former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
It's fiction. Anyone who isn't viewing the tragedy through the lens of a desperate need to blame it on their political adversaries knows that. Climenhaga himself might even know it... but don't hold your breath.
"Mr Loughner was known to hold extreme negative views on such topics as the right of women to have an abortion or to hold public office, as well believing that the US government was practicing mind control, faking spaceflights, and had backed the 911 attacks," Climenhaga writes. "But such beliefs, while they are associated with the Tea Party right, are of necessity completely legal in a democracy."
In terms of beliefs popular with the Tea Party, one of these things is not like the others. Oddly enough, it's the one idea that does find traction amongst the Tea Party: opposition to abortion. The other things are entirely inventions necessary to advance Climenhaga's fantasy-based demagoguery.
That becomes crystal clear when you consider that Climenhaga attempts to attribute 9/11 trutherism to the Tea Party. That's a belief far more at home among the Occupy movement. Don't worry, I'm getting to the occupiers.
Climenhaga's attempt to paint Loughner as an ideological compatriot of Palin and the Tea Party by linking only a single belief prevalent amongst the Tea Party, and known to be held by Palin, is extremely thin gruel. It's actually slightly more substantive than his past offerings, but that's actually saying next to nothing.
Climenhaga also overlooks reports by those who knew Loughner -- and went to high school with him -- that Loughner, in his younger days, was actually a far-leftist whose beliefs gravitated much closer to the Occupy movement than anything even resembling the Tea Party.
Which brings me to the Occupy movement, and just how self-serving the far-left is in politicizing these sorts of violent acts.
Some may remember what happened in November when Oscar Ortega-Hernandez opened fire on the White House. It was a very big story for a few weeks. Some may even remember that Ortega-Hernandez had been spotting hanging out at the Occupy DC encampment. They later honoured him with a moment of silence.
These are the same people who pushed an elderly woman down a flight of stairs, so don't be shocked.
Predictably, Climenhaga isn't doing handstands trying to associate Ortega-Hernandez with the Occupy movement. I don't think the reasons why need to be explained.
Although the pro-Occupy shills of the far-left did handstands trying to dispute the connection. Like Climenhaga, they did it badly, but they did their best. Which, again, is just sad.
But this is all just background. What Climenhaga really wants to do is plant the idea of of imminent political gun violence in Canada -- although we've already seen that Climenhaga will settle for the act of a demented, confused gunman that he himself can politicize.
Once again, Climenhaga offers no evidence. He alludes to the allegedly-threatening tone of pro-gun advocates on Twitter. Which is funny when you think about it.
But, in the end, it just comes back to the common political currency of Climenhaga: demagoguery.
Seeing as how Climenhaga doesn't seem to understand demagoguery. So it seems useful to conclude with a definition: "A leader who obtains power by means of impassioned appeals to the emotions and prejudices of the populace".
Fits the bill nicely, even if David Climenhaga himself can't bring himself to admit it... to himself.
Sometimes the best way to to tell what really stings a far-left ideologue is what they pretend to dismiss.
And the reason it stings is because it's so true. And they know it.
That seemed to be the case recently when Rabble.ca cartoon character David Climenhaga made a wry reference to a Bad Company blogpost pointing out his fearmongering demagoguery related to the long gun registry.
I'm sure readers remember, but just in case you don't, a reminder: Climenhaga dropped a suggestion that abolishing the handgun registry is next on the Harper government's agenda. His evidence? Well, he has no evidence.
For good reason. It's hard to have evidence that something is on the agenda when it's unequivocally not on the agenda.
In reality, Climenhaga knows what he's doing. The left has exploited guns as their favourite wedge issue for decades in Canada, and he's doing what he can to try to keep that wedge issue alive. He does it badly, but he does his best. Which is sad when you think about it.
Today, on the one-year anniversary of the shooting of US Democratic congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Climenhaga is back at it again. And like any other cartoon character, he's predictable. He's once again peddling the far-left myth that the lunatic who took aim at Giffords was set off by former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
It's fiction. Anyone who isn't viewing the tragedy through the lens of a desperate need to blame it on their political adversaries knows that. Climenhaga himself might even know it... but don't hold your breath.
"Mr Loughner was known to hold extreme negative views on such topics as the right of women to have an abortion or to hold public office, as well believing that the US government was practicing mind control, faking spaceflights, and had backed the 911 attacks," Climenhaga writes. "But such beliefs, while they are associated with the Tea Party right, are of necessity completely legal in a democracy."
In terms of beliefs popular with the Tea Party, one of these things is not like the others. Oddly enough, it's the one idea that does find traction amongst the Tea Party: opposition to abortion. The other things are entirely inventions necessary to advance Climenhaga's fantasy-based demagoguery.
That becomes crystal clear when you consider that Climenhaga attempts to attribute 9/11 trutherism to the Tea Party. That's a belief far more at home among the Occupy movement. Don't worry, I'm getting to the occupiers.
Climenhaga's attempt to paint Loughner as an ideological compatriot of Palin and the Tea Party by linking only a single belief prevalent amongst the Tea Party, and known to be held by Palin, is extremely thin gruel. It's actually slightly more substantive than his past offerings, but that's actually saying next to nothing.
Climenhaga also overlooks reports by those who knew Loughner -- and went to high school with him -- that Loughner, in his younger days, was actually a far-leftist whose beliefs gravitated much closer to the Occupy movement than anything even resembling the Tea Party.
Which brings me to the Occupy movement, and just how self-serving the far-left is in politicizing these sorts of violent acts.
Some may remember what happened in November when Oscar Ortega-Hernandez opened fire on the White House. It was a very big story for a few weeks. Some may even remember that Ortega-Hernandez had been spotting hanging out at the Occupy DC encampment. They later honoured him with a moment of silence.
These are the same people who pushed an elderly woman down a flight of stairs, so don't be shocked.
Predictably, Climenhaga isn't doing handstands trying to associate Ortega-Hernandez with the Occupy movement. I don't think the reasons why need to be explained.
Although the pro-Occupy shills of the far-left did handstands trying to dispute the connection. Like Climenhaga, they did it badly, but they did their best. Which, again, is just sad.
But this is all just background. What Climenhaga really wants to do is plant the idea of of imminent political gun violence in Canada -- although we've already seen that Climenhaga will settle for the act of a demented, confused gunman that he himself can politicize.
Once again, Climenhaga offers no evidence. He alludes to the allegedly-threatening tone of pro-gun advocates on Twitter. Which is funny when you think about it.
But, in the end, it just comes back to the common political currency of Climenhaga: demagoguery.
Seeing as how Climenhaga doesn't seem to understand demagoguery. So it seems useful to conclude with a definition: "A leader who obtains power by means of impassioned appeals to the emotions and prejudices of the populace".
Fits the bill nicely, even if David Climenhaga himself can't bring himself to admit it... to himself.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Demagoguery of the Day: STOP PEOPLE FROM WALKING IN THE MOUNTAINS!!!
When you happen to be a foreign-funded lobby group operating in Canada attempting to masquerade as a Canadian nationalist lobby group, the opportunities to gain some street cred are few and far between.
Don't bother telling this to the George Soros-funded Avaaz. They know full well. So that may be the best reason why they're constantly in search of a nationalist crisis.
The recent results have been amusing, to say the least. The George Soros-funded Avaaz's crisis of the month for January 2011 is, apparently, that the Canadian government may allow a steel walkway to be built in Jasper National Park by an American-owned company.
Which would be a shame, really. Not.
Apparently, the folks at Avaaz have overlooked one not-so-minor detail about the Canadian people: we like being able to enjoy our mountains. We also like it when people come from around the world to enjoy our mountains.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Forbidden Questions With Stephen Woodworth
If there's one topic the left is desperate to declare off-limits, it's abortion.
For obvious reasons. Few topics reveal just how little an individual life is worth to the collectivist hordes of the far-left as abortion. The idea that a life can legally be terminated at any point before birth is a detail that they seem desperate to ensure doesn't reach the Canadian public.
So it's only natural that University of Waterloo Professor of Philosophy (sorry, that's Assistant Professor of Philosophy) wrote an allegedly-scathing column on TheComment.com attacking Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth for even bringing it up.
I say allegedly-scathing because I've seen a couple of Twitter comments insisting it's so. But when examined at length, it's actually toothless far-left fluff, evading the crux of the questions Woodworth is asking.
Of course these are the kind of questions that a co-President of Planned Parenthood could never afford to answer. They're forbidden questions, and Dea can't afford to justify them with an honest answer -- even if they don't require an answer in order to be justified.
In particular, Dea objects to Woodworth describing Canadian law as treating unborn children as "subhuman". Yet Dea herself admits that "the law does not regard a breathing child whose little toe remains in the birth canal to be a human being".
Suffice to say, if the child is not human, it's considered something else.
But the the determination that a child was not considered a human being -- as Woodworth himself notes, a determination counter to medical and scientific fact -- originates in a legal decision to strike down Canada's abortion laws. The function of that ruling was to note that an unborn child doesn't have the rights of a human being. Ergo, an unborn child is considered less than human. Which is only a slightly nicer way of saying subhuman.
Whoops. What has Dea done here? Simply put, she's made the most startling admission to slip from the tongue of a pro-abortion lobbyist ever.
Dea's admission notes that she and her fellow pro-abortion lobbyists understand full well how fragile and flimsy the law governing who is considered human and who is not considered human really is. She's admitted that a hypothetical big toe really can make the difference, and doesn't seem to understand that she's just revealed the foundational law for the entire pro-abortion lobby in Canada to be almost entirely arbitrary.
At the height of her ideological frenzy, Dea does vainly attempt to wash this distinction away entirely. She calls it a "red herring". "Anyone who has attended the birth of a child will know that, once the head and shoulders have emerged from the birth canal, the toes (big and little) follow very quickly," she writes. "The notion of someone taking advantage of the very brief period in which the toe is the only part of the baby left in the birth canal in order to do that child harm is straight out of science fiction, and reveals Woodworth’s news release to be cynical polemic rather than the product of genuine practical considerations."
Interestingly, Woodworth hasn't ever claimed that any such thing has ever happened. Nor has he ever suggested that it would happen. But the detail that it could happen is rather sobering, one that Dea quite clearly cannot answer.
But, in the end, Dea excuses herself from ever having to answer such questions by arbitrarily declaring them to be irrelevant.
"Medical science is irrelevant to the question of when a fetus becomes a human being — that matter is a legal and philosophical one, not a medical one," Dea writes.
She could not possibly be more wrong. The very definition of what a "human being" is is deeply rooted in medical science.
No definition of "human being" can escape the most fundamental philosophical reality surrounding the topic: to be "human" is to be a homo sapien. To be a "being" is to exist. Neither of these things are for the law or philosophy to determine. They are both objective states.
An unborn child, regardless of whether or not it has exited the birth canal and breathed, is homo sapien. And it exists. No law in the land can deny that, and although philosophy may try, all but the most deranged would-be Nietzches couldn't deny it either. And even they with absolutely zero credibility in the minds of rational people.
If Dea spoke any further on this particular topic, she would surely expose the self-indulgent standard of virtue epistemology -- effectively, the means test of knowledge -- that the pro-abortion lobby is founded on. She does as much, although regarding a separate topic, when she claims Canadians don't want to debate abortion. As it pertains to Canada's abortion law -- or lack thereof -- this is tantamount to a desire to not debate something on which they are woefully misinformed.
Or, perhaps, that should be "woefully disinformed." The pro-abortion lobby has been relentless in their promotion of public ignorance on the topic.
There's good reason for a healthy debate on abortion, and good reason for that debate to continue indefinitely. After all, another fact the pro-abortion lobby cannot avoid, however desperately they may try, is that abortion deals with the termination of human life.
It's a disturbed society that would allow matters related to the termination of human life to go undebated. A society wherein abortion is not the subject of debate is as disturbed as one in which capital punishment is not the subject of debate.
Shannon Dea may not like it. But tough. It's more important for Canada to have an ethically healthy society than for the pro-abortion zealots of the land to have their way, which is unfortunately the only thing they really care about.
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