Mother of three explains black crime

Meet Kemi -- real name (maybe) Kemi Omololu-Olunloyo -- a self-styled "community activist", originally from Nigeria and now living in Toronto.

Speaking in an interview with Canada's so-called national newspaper, the Globe and Mail, Ms. Omololu-Olunloyo (hereafter "O-O" for short) expressed great concern about all the gun violence she's noticed in Toronto in recent months. Ms. O-O brought with her to the meeting a tombstone-sized piece of white board inscribed with the names of the 28 Torontonians shot dead this year. By her reckoning, all but three of them were black.

What Ms. O-O didn't say clearly is that nearly all of the perps, suspected or arrested, are also black. At least, though, she didn't explain black-on-black crime away with the usual rants about systemic discrimination and poverty. What she recommends is that "the community" -- which community was not specified but we can safely assume she means black folk -- "should co-operate willingly with police to hunt down the thugs who do the killing". Yeah, like that's going to happen!

But, she emphasizes, something must be done to save these children. She says it really slowly for emphasis: “These … are … people’s … children.” Ms. O-O should know, being the mother of three sons herself. The whereabouts of the father or fathers of these children is not mentioned in the article.

Nor does Kemi explain clearly how she came to be a "community activitist" in a country to which she came only three years ago, after three decades in the USA. Buried in the middle of the Globe's article is a reference to Ms. O-O having had a spot of bother with the authorities in Georgia. Apparently there are a couple of warrants outstanding for jumping bail and violating probation.

Perhaps she came to Canada as a refugee. Isn't it great that she has been able to find "work" -- paid for by whom? -- telling Toronto how to solve its social problems. Pity that she missed the one obvious solution.

Footnote: The article from yesterday's Globe and Mail is here.

The unhappiest place in Canada

I see where Toronto is the most miserable city in Canada according to a study conducted by the Canadian Centre for the Study of Living Standards. Suspicions confirmed.

Toronto is also the most multicultural city in Canada, according to the soon-to-be-abolished long form census and many other indicators.

Could the two facts be related? Surely we should be told.

Postscript: The happiest city in Canada is Sherbrooke, QC -- not a thousand miles from where Walt's sylvan hideaway.

153

More than nine months after his death, Capt. Francis Cecil Paul, late of Badger, Newfoundland, has been officially declared Canada's 153rd fatal casualty of the war in Afghanistan.

A member of Ottawa-based 28 Field Ambulance, Capt. Paul died in February from natural causes while on leave. He was 53 years old.

In a statement, Canadian Forces General Walt Natynczyk said "Although his death came suddenly while on leave from his deployment in Afghanistan, he was still on duty and considered part of the mission, and therefore his death is no less important than any other CF member who served and died while in Afghanistan.... It is important that his name be added to the list of fallen."

RIP.

Muslim leaders blast pardoning of "blasphemous" Christian

Westerners seem kind of tired of talking and hearing about Pakistan. Yeah, they had a big flood. 1000s dead, more homeless. Yeah, they're poor as churchmice -- oops, mosque-mice. Yeah, their government is corrupt, despotic and incompetent. Ho-hum.

What should not be forgotten is that Pakistan is officially a Muslim state. That was the whole point of its creation at the partition of British India in 1947.

The Muslims didn't want to live in the same country as Hindus and Christians. They wanted their own space. And so they got West Pakistan, now just "Pakistan", and East Pakistan, once East Bengal and now Bangladesh. Both countries are blessed with Islamic laws and typical south Asian politics, as a result of which they are typical third world basket cases. [Jute baskets in the case of Bangladesh. Ed.]

Islamic religion, Islamic culture, Islamic law. Yes. That's why one of the things you can't de in Pakistan is blaspheme the prophet. Nor can you suggest that any religion other than Islam has any validity. Asia Bibi found that out the hard way.

Ms. Bibi, a Punjabi, is a 45-year-old mother of five, who happens to be a Christian. While she was working at a local farm, the Muslim women with whom she was working called her an infidel and urged her to convert to Islam. Bibi refused, saying that Christianity was the only true religion.

According to the Pakistan Christian Post the Muslim men working in nearby fields also gathered and attacked Asia Bibi on which she fled to village in her home. The angry Muslims followed her and took her out of home and started beating and raping her.

They tortured her children also, while someone informed police. The police then arrested Bibi on blasphemy charges! Following a lengthy trial, she was sentenced to death. Whether the execution would be by stoning or beheading has not been reported.

Ms. Bibi's death sentence provoked an international outcry, at least in the Christian media. You may not have heard or read much in the lamestream media because of course we wouldn't want to offend our Muslim brothers by suggesting that they are intolerant.

Now Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan’s minister for minorities, has found that Bibi was wrongfully convicted, and Punjab Governor Salman Taseer has told CNN that the Pakistan president will pardon her. “I mean, he’s a liberal, modern-minded president, and he’s not going to see a poor woman like this targeted and executed,” said Taseer. “It’s just not going to happen.”

Or will it? Islamist leaders are reportedly planning protests throughout Pakistan if Bibi is pardoned. Attorneys in the district where Bibi is jailed are boycotting the courts to protest a possible pardon, and opponents of the release have gathered outside the jail. Islamic fundamentalist groups are threatening to kill her if she is freed, according to Fides news agency reports.

Meanwhile, Mr. Bhatti, who is also a Christian, said that Pakistan may amend its controversial anti-blasphemy law but will not repeal it, prompting the leader of the Pakistan Christian Congress to call for his resignation.

Click here to read a more detailed report from the Pakistan Christian Post.

Corruption in a time of cholera: update on Haiti

Did you give money to help the victims of the Haitian earthquake? If you're Canadian, you certainly did, whether you know it or not. About $220 million was raised through private donations to the Red Cross and other charities. The Canadian government -- sorry, Canadian taxpayers -- added $220 million. And now that a cholera epidemic is raging, they've kicked in another $5 million or so.

That makes $445,000,000 in Canadian aid money which is supposed to be helping the most impoverished and disaster-stricken country in the western hemisphere. Is it?

No need to send your answer to Walt on the back of a postage stamp. Yesterday, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation aired a good exposé on where your aid money is going. Watch the video and you'll see a first-hand account -- just one of many -- of how some of your money is being paid directly to corrupt officials of the Haitian government. They're the ones getting fat off your generosity.

From other sources, Walt has learned that only about a third of the funds -- $146 million -- has actually been spent on disaster relief. And that includes the salaries and expenses of all the aid industry workers who are administering and delivering the relief services. Figures on the cost of that overhead are unavailable.

What of the nearly $300 million still in the bank? According to published reports, that's for "reconstruction", which of course can't begin until things settle down. That means having an election to throw out the rascals and bring in new rascals. (No, Wyclef Jean is not running. I'm talking about other rascals.)

It also means getting the cholera epidemic under control. Notice I didn't say eradicating cholera. Cholera is pandemic in Haiti as in many black countries where poverty goes hand in hand with insanitation and disease.

Where in all this, you might ask, is Michaëlle Jean, the Haitian-born woman of colour who spent too long as Canada's Governor-General? I'm happy to report that Her Jeanness landed with her brown bum in the butter. Shortly after being evicted from Rideau Hall she was appointed as UNESCO's "special representative to Haiti".

So she's in Haiti then? Errr, no. She's in New York at UNESCO HQ. But her staff says she's "fully engaged" with Haiti and will be going there "sometime in the future".

Once a refugee, always a refugee?

Interesting ruling today from the Supreme Court of Canada on the rights of refugees. At issue was the question of whether, once you've been officially declared to be a refugee, you can lose that status.

We all know (because the lamestream media tells us) that gypsies -- oops, sorry, "Roma" -- are the most persecuted people in the world. Why only recently France has decided to expel 1000s of them. Something to do with dirt, crime and abuse of welfare systems, some say.

But that's France. In Canada, gypsies are welcome, as long as they know enough English or French to holler "refugee" or "réfugié" when they get off the boat. Or out of the first-class section of the airplane.

Take the cases of Joszef and Joszefne Nemeth, who came to Canada in 2001 from Hungary, and Tiberiu Gavrila, who arrived in 2004 from Romania. [Does that mean "land of the Roma"? Must check. Ed.]

It's worth noting that by the time these "refugees" had arrived, they couldn't claim to be fleeing the godless Communists, because the Communist dictatorships of both countries had fallen in the wake of the breakup of the Soviet Union. So they said they were at risk of persecution because they were Roma. And of course the Canadians bought it. To deny their refugee claim would have made the Canadian government seem racist, eh.

Somewhat later, the Hungarian government sought extradition of Mr. and Mrs. Nemeth to face a charge of fraud. At about the same time, Romanian asked that Mr. Gavrila be sent back to serve time on a conviction for, errr, fraud.

Agent 3, who studied the subject, tells me that the general principle of international law is that refugees cannot be sent back to countries where they were persecuted. But there are exceptions, one such being cases of serious, non-political crime. Like, errr, fraud.

The Québec Superior Court thought both cases fell within the exception, and authorized the extradition of all three "refugees". The Canadian Minister of Justice, Rob Nicholson, ordered the removals, saying the people involved had not shown they were at risk of persecution if they were sent back.

But the Nemeths and Mr. Gavrila appealed, assisted no doubt by lawyers paid for by Canadian taxpayers. Their cases were heard together at the Supreme Court of Canada in Ottawa. Their grounds for appeal were that they couldn't be extradited unless their refugee status was formally revoked, which it wasn't.

The Supreme Court quashed the extraditions. Why? Because the Minister of Justice hadn't followed the right procedure and applied the correct test. The onus wasn't on the refugees to show that they were at risk, the court said. Rather the onus is on the government to show that they are not.

The court accepted that Minister Nicholson looked at the situation in Hungary and Romania at the time the extradition was sought. Both countries have joined the European Union and come under its human rights rules and conventions. So the minister thought there was little chance of persecution.

Speaking for the court, Mr. Justice Cromwell wrote “Change of circumstances in a refugee's country of origin may lead to cessation of refugee protection. In short, protection ceases to apply to persons who, by virtue of a change in circumstances, no longer need it.”

But, he added, the minister must be satisfied that the threat of persecution no longer exists. One wonders what the minister should have done to satisfy himself. Should he have dressed up like a gypsy and gone to Hungary and Romania to see what would happen to him? Should he have taken into account the pro-gypsy propaganda fed to Canadians through the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star?

Whatever it was Nicholson did, he didn't do enough of it or he didn't do it well enough. The cases of all three "refugees" now go back to him so that he can review his decision.

And what if Mr. Nicholson looks at the files again and stands by his original decision? Well, his decision can still be appealed...again...courtesy of the Trudeau Charter of Rights and the Canadian taxpayer.

Bush's lies about going to war

Up to my ass in alligators this morning but will make time to pass along Agent 17's recommendation of a piece in the Huffington Post -- always a good online read.

Dan Froomkin has read George W. Bush's just-released memoir, which puts Dan several steps ahead of Walt. From it, he has selected what he consider the two most egregious lies.

The article is called "The Two Most Essential, Abhorrent, Intolerable Lies Of George W. Bush's Memoir". Agent 17 says, "See how far you can read before having an urge to vomit."

I got as far as the phrase "coercive democracy" before having to run to the washroom. Will post this now and finish the rest sometime later, after I've over-indulged. File it under "suspicions confirmed".