New Media

I recently opined that the masked Black Bloc protesters deserved whatever harsh treatment they got from the cops. But I don’t condone cops acting like bullies. Here’s an obvious case of thuggish behavior from the other side of the billion-dollar thin blue line at the G20.

H/T to Jay Currie

The Size Doesn’t Matter campaign is a brilliant counter to the Israel Apartheid Week. When debate is rendered meaningless, but turning the other cheek isn’t your bag, satire and counter-culture jamming makes a lot of sense.

Instead of images of Palestinians at checkpoints, we get a shot of a nearly-naked supermodel. Forget Gaza — look at this Mediterranean beach! What happened to the kids throwing stones at a Merkava tank? They must be hiding behind the stage at that rock concert. Forget for a moment the statistics on the number of Palestinians living below the poverty line. Let’s have a look at some facts about Israel’s achievements in the fields of science, medicine and the protection of civil rights (for both Israeli Jews and Arabs in equal measure, naturally).

Cynics will look at this social media campaign and its publicized events at campuses across Canada as an offensive distraction to the grim IAW movement. But that’s the point. It’s meant to be.

IAW is itself a distraction and a decisively unhelpful one when it comes to actually solving the horrendous challenge of Middle East peace. Putting out Size Doesn’t Matter as a distraction to the distraction is exactly the strategy to use.

We live in a culture where political correctness has dulled the ability of both students and their teachers to distinguish between a liberal democracy and a lawless tyranny. In that context, sowing confusion among the holier-than-thou fundamentalists and proto-fascists with a campaign of big boobs, bright lights and some reminders about the gay-friendly, women-friendly and eco-friendly nature of the Jewish state just plain works.

“It may be small, but it has brought the driest places to life!”

The federal government’s conservative-minded (surprise!) budget aims merely to avoid spending more than last year on programs without any deep cuts to try to tame the deficit. There will be those who criticize this sleep-walking sort of economic policy for lack of courage or ideas. Then again, “stay the course” is not necessarily a bad thing when it comes to an economy that outperformed almost every other developed nation last year. We could have done a worse — a lot worse.

A few examples of boondoggles our boring fiscal policy has managed to avoid spending on recently:

* Ninety-two upgraded T-72M1M main battle tanks for a bargain-basement price of four billion dollars. As Venezuela’s economy implodes under the rule of strongman Hugo Chavez and the people face food and power shortages, it’s nice to know that the Venezuelan people are safe from… who, again?

* Bailing out Greece for $6.5 billion. Whatever it takes to make sure sclerotic Greek unions and their olive-scented bureaucrats can keep raking in bloated salaries for serving the public with traditional incompetence. Oh, wait. Since we contribute to the IMF, taxpayers may be on the hook for this after all.

* Three gold medals for $120 million over four years. Russia may have spent more on their athletes than we did, but their return on investment was dismal. Better luck in Sochi, comrades.

* $1.5 billion for a Babel-sized skyscraper in Dubai — basically, in the middle of nowhere. It closed a month after it opened due to technical problems.

* $85 million for bomb detectors for Iraqi security forces. This sounds like an essential investment for a nation that routinely suffers mass casualties from terrorist attacks. That is, until you realize that you could get the same level of effectiveness at half the price by simply waving $42.5 million worth of stacks of cash at security checkpoints.

Of course we have our own share of stupid spending priorities. The millions spent on HRCs that seem to spend far too much time protecting such important values as the “human right” of not washing your hands before serving food to customers is just one example. That said, maybe we’re not so badly off in the big picture.

Screw You, Taxpayer!

Am I crazy, or did a convicted terrorist just walk free for no good reason?

Just a few days ago, we had this story about how criminals could no longer take advantage of a legal loophole to avoid hard-time behind bars:

Criminals convicted in Canada will no longer be able to receive double credit for time served before trial unless there are exceptional circumstances.

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson will announce in a news conference on Parliament Hill Tuesday afternoon he is enacting the legislation which eliminates the common practice of two-for-one credit for pre-trial custody…

“It’s going to go a long way to giving people confidence in the justice system,” said Manitoba Justice Minister Andrew Swan.

And today, a man who entered a plea of guilty of involvement in a terrorist plot goes free the same day as a result of the old rules about two-for-one credit:

James, 27, pleaded guilty in Superior Court to one count of participating in a terrorist group, an offence that carries a maximum 10-year jail term. He received seven years plus a day, but with time served taken into account on the customary two-for-one basis, he was to be freed from Maplehurst prison shortly after leaving court.

I’m not a lawyer. Can someone in the know please explain this to me? Seriously.

The Toronto 18 Terror Plot

Nice to see the youth talking about how democracy works for us. They seem to get it.

I only wish more Canadian adults clearly understood the importance of our freedoms, that democracy transcends national or cultural traits and that ultimately, these values are worth defending — not just within the limits of our safe and prosperous shores. Sometimes, we do have to help other people win the freedoms that we take for granted.

But getting back to the point of this little post:

To encourage youth participation and engagement in democracy, British Columbia’s middle and high school students were asked to create a short video about democracy in their lives at school, home or with their friends. Student videos were to encourage youth participation in democracy and illustrate the values and principles of democracy.

Congratulations to Sophia Chen and fellow Burnaby North Secondary School students, Aleem Dhanji, Kate Gao and Javed Siddoo as the winners of the “Democracy on Location” video contest for their video “Why Should Youth Care About Democracy?”