"He was at the Falaise Gap, taking refuge in a quarry with several hundred other soldiers as bombs rained down--from American forces, four miles off-target."
Just couldn't resist could you Dawg. Where never is heard an encouraging word.
Like the Germans in WWII, you're on the losing side of the Section 13(1) embarassment, and like them, you sense it too.
It's hard to be sure of too much in this world, Dawg, but not of this: the motivation of Shaidle and Levant is predominately attention to and for themselves. Full stop.
I actually think the other member of that particular Axis of Idiocy, Kate MacMillan, is more circumspect sometimes.
What a ridiculous stretch it is to suggest this woman's participation in Remembrance Day events was somehow an insult to the war dead. How freaking childish. They are liars, Shaidle and Levant, if they would have anyone believe their motivation is sincere. Attention whores, the two of them, both scrabbling for what is likely a diminishing slice of the I'm-a-free-speech hero pie.
I've only been blogging for seven months and aware of the blogging world for that period of time. When I first began reading people like Shaidle and Levant on "freedom of hate speech" and other human rights issues, I thought I must have fallen down the rabbit hole into another world. I still can't believe they exist and that anybody reads their crap without having their heads explode like mine did.
Dawg, today is the day we remember our fathers and our grandfathers and the sacrifices they made for their country.
If Ms. Lynch wants to present a wreath in their memory I'm all for it. But if she thinks Remembrance Day is about vanity wreaths with special dedications she is politicizing a day which should remain resolutely apolitical.
Which I called her on.
I very much doubt that if you asked your father or mine if they thought it was a good idea for a branch of the Canadian Government to be posting neo-Nazi crap or to be lying under oath or to be censoring political speech they would say, "Hell yes."
Ms. Lynch has a problem. She is about to receive a report which, while commissioned by the Commission, will almost certainly condemn its practices. She has read this report and she is spinning hard.
To use Remembrance Day to spin is contemptible. And I am surprised you don't recognize that.
hysperia, the bad news is that there are other bloggers out there who share Shaidle and Levant's ideological world view.
The good news is that they're in the minority. Thus they puff themselves up to take up a lot of space in the pretense that their views are edgy or relevant.
I like to know how, exactly, Ms. Lynch "spun" her participation in this Remembrance Day event. She was there as a representative of the Human Rights Commission. So what.
Are you suggesting, Jay, that the Human Rights Commission officially condones the alleged inappropriate practices that have been discussed, ad nauseum, on political blogs like Levant's.
THAT'S spin.
gee, Shane, who did Lucy work for? Who did Ian fine work for?...are you suggesting that the Commission was so dumb it didn't know what its employees were up to?
I mean it's possible; but that would be all the more reason not to entrust them with something as fundamental to our democracy as free speech/
Marie Ève, you might well be right; but until the Dawg gave you this space who had ever heard of you?
To give you some idea of the space: a Dawg link is a 1, and Ezra link a 3, a Kathy link about 10 and Kate weighs in at 15-17.
Dawg, I read Levant's piece, and Jay Currie's pair, and the comments there as you suggested, and now Mr Currie's comment here. There's way too much to deal with even in one of my novelette-length comments, but one thing in particular has me baffled.
There seems to be an assumption on the part of all these angry people that Ms. Lynch somehow shoved her way into the ceremony, by -- what? -- calling up the Chief of Protocol (or whoever) and saying "I'm going to lay a wreath at the Cenotaph this year", and they said, "Uh, Okay" (or... they tried to stop her but she unleashed her unholy minions and steamrollered them?). Really?
C'mon. Ceremonies as important as this one are designed and rehearsed and hashed out down to the last detail. Any group that gets to lay a wreath is, I would expect, either invited or applies and is accepted. The decision for Ms Lynch to lay a wreath on behalf of the CHRC would in no way have been hers alone, and might not even have been her idea at all, no matter what Levant and the other frothers might believe. Or pretend to believe.
It's odd, too, that some editor at the National Post didn't catch that little misstep in Levant's piece, but maybe thinking things through isn't their strong suit either.
North, I suspect you are right. There is, no doubt a procedure and in this case it failed.
So far as I have been able to see the rest of the wreaths were laid in commemoration of the fallen and those who serve. Lynches was the only vanity wreath.
Apparently, the ceremony itself is run by the Dominion Command of the Canadian Legion. They have a rather stuffed email box at the moment. They are also losing a number of locations which have previously sold poppies.
Maybe they had no idea of the publicity stunt the trout was planning, maybe they did and didn't care. In either case they are unlikely to make this mistake again.
Jay, your obsession is making you less than rational. I'm being charitable here, and putting that very mildly indeed.
Nobody out there is interested in this little non-controversy. Check out the news links--there's a vicious and poorly-written press release from Ezra Levant that no news outlet has bothered with, an inane comment in the rapidly-sinking National Post, and some squawking in the blogosphere. That's it, that's all.
If I were the Legion, I would dismiss the handful of protests they might receive as what they are--a crank with a following.
Who else would protocol dictate should lay an official wreath to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? Ryan Sparrow?
Come on, you're better than this. Or so I would have thought up to now.
just out of curiosity, who else was allowed to place a wreath at the cenotaph and just what is their excuse? how dare those scalliwags try and inflict their insidious human rights on our glorious dead, brave soldiers that gave their lives fighting for human rights. and as far as being political goes, well jay, you and your squealing pals are the very picture of self serving, political onanists.
"Apparently, the ceremony itself is run by the Dominion Command of the Canadian Legion. They have a rather stuffed email box at the moment. They are also losing a number of locations which have previously sold poppies."
by this, are you saying that your conservative pals are attacking the legion? really? mail bombing and casting them out of sites where they once sold poppies? now tell me who the small minded, mean and ignorant political operators are. you're a piece of fucking work.
Jay, you are being divisive and mean-spirited on a day when we are supposed to collectively honour the fallen, not bicker about what they fell for. You are also being arrogant in assuming your politics give you an inside track on what our soldiers think they are sacrificing for. It is perfectly appropriate to honour the Charter because, even though you and I may have problems with how it is used and politicized, it represents what many folks cherish, including a lot of the Forces. You might as well object to the presence of the Queen because you oppose British imperialism. There is no way it was a vanity wreath. I remember years ago a bunch of students laid a wreath to honour everybody who ever died of hunger. That was a vanity wreath intended to snub, but this isn't by any stretch.
But Dr. Dawg, Lynch shouldn't have been the one to lay it. At the very least it should have been the Chair of the Tribunal. Having the Commission lay it is like asking a Crown Attorney to lead the celebrations of the Charter of Rights.
I watched the ceremony from Ottawa yesterday. I was immensley moved by the words of the National Honourary Chaplain of the Dominion Command, Rabbi Reuven Bulka. Hold on a minute is that the same Rabbi Bulka who also happens to be co-President of Canadian Jewish Congress? The same organization that Ezra Lerant has condemned over and over again for having the audacity to defend human rights in Canada? I wait now with held breath for Ezra's latest press release.
Peter:
I don't understand your last point. The Commission outranks the Tribunal from a protocol standpoint, does it not? The CHRC, for example, refers cases to the Tribunal: and it is charged with administering the CHRA, not the CHRT.
I'm saying, Jay, that Lynch was likely unaware of the alleged nefarious activities of someone in the employ of the HRC.
Shane:
She is fully aware of the controversy, I think--there's even been an internal investigation.
For the record, I've seen no evidence that anyone has done anything wrong, despite the shrill and sometimes libelous comments directed at the agency and its staff.
We'll see what the investigation reveals, if anything.
Dawg, for a long time I've understood, and respected, the role that bloggers like you, CC, RedTory et al play in keeping tabs on the looser nuts of the rightwingosphere. I know I couldn't read and put up with the amount of crap you all wade through, and push back against, day after day.
But after wading through this s**t today...I gotta say, man, I really have to wonder at the logic of giving these yahoos so much attention and legitimacy.
Out here in the real world, where I've been spending much more of my time these past few weeks, people really don't take their insanity seriously.
The Post is going belly up. Ezra and his ilk are under the legal gun. Harper's still stuck in a minority, and Obama's won the White House.
I'm not saying the battle for progressives is by any means over. But sometimes, it's better to walk past the crazy guy on the street, no matter how much they flail and sputter. They're a distraction. We can engage them because we have access to the internet too. But you've got to ask, is it really a good use of time and resources? (I've asked that more and more every time I got to CC's and see another moronic statement from another faceless known-nothing Blogging Tory.)
I mean, we get it. There's a lot of stupid folks on the internet. But to continue giving them a platform where they can continue to hurl their childish rants, on your soapbox, seems self-defeating.
Anyway, as I noted, I've been offline thanks to work and social commitments. I think that'll only increase, since life is far better when you realize that apart from a handful of blogs with a handful of commentators - and no, SDA's numbers have never impressed me, even when they get close to the hundreds on various posts - most people, from all walks of life, have far better things to do, and can see through their manufactured outrage.
No one takes their crap seriously. If the Speechers took their campaign out of the shadows of the internet, they'd either be ignored, or laughed out of town.
As they have been so far.
Majority = minority, of course. D-oh!
Already fixed!
Hmm. Well it's a good thing that all of Ezra's bluster has had absolutely no effect on anything at all.
Don't tell Jay that though 
.
Dr. Dawg:
You Commission fans have to come clean. It enforces the Act, whatever the wording of the statute. A body that has the power to haul people into a tribunal and impose serious sanctions is fulfilling a policing role, not an administrative role.
BTW, I meant "Declaration" in my comment above, not "Charter".
Dr Dawg: "My father was a young lieutenant during WWII, heading up the 1 Canadian Calibration Troop. He was at the Falaise Gap, taking refuge in a quarry with several hundred other soldiers as bombs rained down--from American forces, four miles off-target."
Why the gratuitous American bashing? Are you aware of this?
'The most publicized example of the difficulties of operating heavy and medium bombers in support of ground forces came during the preparatory bombardment for Operation Cobra, the breakthrough attack at Saint-Lo that led to the breakout across France. The Cobra strikes killed slightly over 100 GIs and wounded about 500. Without a doubt, the strikes were badly executed, and serious command errors were made. The first came on July 24, a cloudy day, when Cobra had been initially set for launch. A postponement order reached the Eighth Air Force Commander, Lt. Gen. James H. "Jimmy" Doolittle, too late: the Eighth's bombers were already airborne. Most crews wisely refrained from bombing due to weather and returned to base. Some found conditions acceptable and did drop. Friendly casualties occurred in three instances. When another plane in the formation was destroyed by flak, a bombardier accidently toggled his bomb load on an Allied airstrip, damaging planes and equipment. A lead bombardier experienced "difficulty with the bomb release mechanism" and part of his load dropped, causing eleven other bombardiers to drop, thinking they were over the target. Finally, a formation of five medium bombers from the Ninth Air Force dropped seven miles north of the target, amid the 30th Infantry Division. This latter strike inflicted the heaviest casualties 25 killed and 131 wounded-on the first day that Cobra was attempted.'
Mark
Ottawa
Peter:
The CHRC refers cases to the CHRT, which can dispose of them as they wish. But I was talking about protocol: and there is no doubt, at least in my mind, that the CHRC is the senior body.
gratuitous American bashing?
Aw, Mark, give it a rest. The event happened, and even folks who think that Americans can do no wrong, ever, can't change that plain fact. Would you rather I had simply said that he was under bombardment, and let everyone try to guess who was doing the bombarding?
For someone with an interest in history, you get pretty selective sometimes.
As a matter of interest, my thesis supervisor in Glasgow, a commando during the war, found himself in that same quarry. Small world.
"The CHRC refers cases to the CHRT, which can dispose of them as they wish."
Apparently, until just recently while in the public spot light, their wish has been to convict 100% of the time Dawg.
It is a political body as much as an administrative one. It is made up of political appointees who are for the most part not lawyers, lacking legal background, and social activists/ designers. A very bad combination.
This is the reason real democracies require real courts that require the accuser to prove their case, not the other way around....an actually show up to face the defendant!
An embarrassment to Canada.
We've been through this quite a few times before, Jim, but the errors about the CHRT continue:
--100% conviction rate. Wrong.
--appointees for the most part not lawyers. Ludicrously wrong. At last count, the CHRT had ten lawyers and one certified arbitrator on board.
--reverse onus. Wrong.
But do keep playing.
But I was talking about protocol:
Boy you leftists can be just so hung up about tradition and protocol!
We need to know it to transcend it. Freedom is the consciousness of necessity.
I'm deadly on rules of order, by the way.
Re: "In my naivete, I would have thought that marking the end of World War II by laying a wreath to commemorate this important anniversary was a no-brainer."
In my naivete, I thought this anniversary marked the sacrifices of our soldiers in various wars and conflicts - not the establishment of another unenforceable proclamation from the U.N. bureaucracy. Commemoration of this event (i.e. laying of wreaths at the cenotaph) should be restricted to veterans and/or their families and not a photo-op for politicians.
"We've been through this quite a few times before, Jim, but the errors about the CHRT continue"
Not sure what you are referring to in previous comments Dawg, since I don't think I have ever quoted any data regarding HRCs. In this one, I should have been more specific:
I am quite sure the CHRT has a 100% conviction rate under "Section 13 cases". Ok, maybe 98%...jeeze.
And most "HRC employees" interrogating the accused are not lawyers. Throw in the lawyers at the CHRT and I think this still works out that most are not not.
In any event Dawg. It is the Section 13 law that allows the abuse of Canadians. People working at the HRCs are just executing them....no pun intended.
Why is it that every year the right whingers cook up some controversy on Remembrance Day and then accuse the left of politicizing it. For those of you who have forgotten these incidents, let me refresh your memory on a couple of the controversies of Remembrance Day past.
There was the ZOMG! the left is preventing veterans from selling poppies controversy.
There was the ZOMG! the left is preventing bloggers from putting a poppy on their blog controversy.
There was the ZOMG! the left are selling white poppies controversy.
Every bloody year these douchebags politicize and demean Remembrance Day with their filthy controversies.
Just for the record, Dawg, Canada has now washed her hands of the Universal Declaration:
Canada’s position was echoed by several delegations including India, who objected to the change of focus from protecting to limiting freedom of expression. The European Union, the United Kingdom (speaking for Australia and the United States), India, Brazil, Bolivia, Guatemala and Switzerland all withdrew their sponsorship of the main resolution when the amendment was passed. In total, more than 20 of the original 53 co-sponsors of the resolution withdrew their support.
You can read the rest over at my place.
I have long been bothered by the lumping together on Remembrance Day of WW1 and WW2. While both (and other wars) should be remembered, they should be remembered for different reasons: WW2 involved a necessary struggle against evil; WW1 did not. So yesterday I was pleased to attend a small ceremony at the Mackenzie-Papineau monument here in Victoria, at which white poppies were distributed. One speaker encouraged people to wear both a red and a white poppy.
http://www.ppu.org.uk/whitepoppy...oppy/
index.html
Afterwards I walked over to the larger, official Remembrance Day ceremony, where "Onward Christian Soldiers" was being played over a loudspeaker. Fight and die for Jesus? I did not stay. I prefer the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The focus on WWI and II and Korea makes it difficult to commemorate 1775 and 1812-14, when Canadians actually died to defend Canada. What is special about Korea as opposed to, say, the Boer War? None of them were fought for democracy. We entered WWI in support of the Bosnian-Serb terrorists (or has everyone forgotten?) and in WWII, having sold out democratic Czechoslovakia, we entered to support fascist Poland. The major Allies were Stalinist Russia and Koumintang China, hardly paragons of freedom. Other Allied countries including Greece and Newfoundland were dictatorships at the time. And India was hardly a democracy. Enough of this Boy's Own version of war.
Wait... do we as Canadians have nothing else better to do than to make up controversies?
We're in the middle of a war without probable end, the biggest economic meltdown in three generations and *this* is something that we want to spend our time on?
whatevs, Jay Currie.
Are you seriously suggesting that your father took up arms so that Jennifer Lynch and Richard Warman could decide who gets free speech and who doesn't?
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