It's Not A Small World After All: Part II

For almost forty years now, the unofficial motto of Canada has been "Diversity Our Strength." To suggest otherwise has been considered an embarrassing faux pas at best, downright evil at worst.

Now some courageous academics have decided to attack the underlying the basis of our multicultural myth:

Visible-minority immigrants are slower to integrate into Canadian society than their white, European counterparts, and feel less Canadian, suggesting multiculturalism doesn't work as well for non-whites, according to a landmark report.

The study, based on an analysis of 2002 Statistics Canada data, found that the children of visible-minority immigrants exhibited a more profound sense of exclusion than their parents.

Visible-minority newcomers, and their offspring, identify themselves less as Canadians, trust their fellow citizens less and are less likely to vote than white immigrants from Europe.

The findings suggest that multiculturalism, Canada's official policy on interethnic relations since 1971, is not working as well for newer immigrants or for their children, who hail largely from China, South Asia and the Caribbean, conclude co-authors Jeffrey Reitz, a University of Toronto sociologist, and Rupa Banerjee, a doctoral candidate.

Despite all the denigration and downplaying of Canadian history and culture, Canada is still a Western country, and immigrants from non-Western countries are naturally going to find it harder to integrate.

Think about it in reverse.

If you emigrated from Canada, would you find Germany less of a culture shock than Pakistan?

Source: Globe and Mail

Baghdad USA

When will the left demand an immediate withdrawal from the Detroit quagmire?

The vandalization of two Shiite mosques and five Shiite-owned businesses in Detroit, Michigan, has raised the specter of sectarian clashes in the United States.

While police have not yet determined who threw rocks and bricks through the windows of the mosques and businesses, many in the community believe it was an attack by Sunnis, said Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

The vandalism came a week after the execution in Iraq of Saddam Hussein. Many Sunnis were offended by the way in which local Shiites celebrated his death, Walid said.

The owner of one of the restaurants targeted received a threatening phone call Saturday from a man speaking in Arabic and English who noted that he was a Shiite and said, “You’re going to get yours . . . what goes around comes around,” Walid said.

This almost makes me nostalgic for the days when Detroit's worst problems were race riots. Almost.

Source: Manila Times

Ciad Mile Failte

Congratulations to Visitor X from Pilot Butte, Saskatchewan, who stumbled onto this site whilst googling for information about RCMP uniforms.

At 9:47:01 Eastern Standard Time today, you became the 100,000th recorded visitor to Dissonance And Disrespect.

You win absolutely nothing except the unique recognition of being visitor 100,000 to this site. That's something you can't auction on eBay.

Big Of Him

What this man is doing is a crime today.

Tomorrow, it will be his court-given Charter right:

A Missouri mother is desperately trying to stop her newly married 39-year-old daughter from joining her bigamist husband here in Toronto.

Oliver Killeen, 70, who has been married at least 19 times, moved to Toronto in June 2005 after being freed from jail in England for his illegal 19th marriage. He boasted to the Star in October that he was a "conman" with "at least six girlfriends" in the city, and that he was able to "hypnotize" them. Seventeen of his marriages have been illegal.

Gina Lascuola, a hard-working single mom of a disabled child, met Killeen through a Catholic singles website in March and married him in Niagara Falls on Dec. 28, according to her mother, Debbie Lascuola.

She believes her daughter learned of Killeen's past before she married him, but married him anyway after spending only a few days with him on two visits to Canada in December.

Gina insists "she loves Oliver and we're not going to stop her from being with him. That's pretty much how all of her conversations have gone – that he is a changed man," says Debbie Lascuola. "We don't believe it."

Read more about this charming spalpeen here.

Such a shame for the progressives at the Toronto Star to take a censorious attitude towards a man whose only crime is that he loves more than one woman at the same time. If he were homosexual, the Star would be demanding the courts let him take several "husbands" (wives? spouses? tops? bottoms?) at once.

Dion Fights The Second Coming

Bonnie Prince Justin has made it clear that he wants to be the Liberal candidate for Outremont, where Jean Lapierre will not be reoffering.

The prospect will delight many an aging baby boomer hoping to relive their lost youth with Trudeaumania II, just as they tried (and failed) at Woodstock II.

Stephane Dion, however, is less than enthusiastic:

La Presse reports that Liberal leader Stephane Dion was planning on reserving the riding for high-profile candidates who could help the rebuild the party's support in Quebec.

According to the newspaper, Dion has made it clear to some Liberals that the 35-year-old Trudeau is not the star candidate he was seeking.

Well, of course not. The Young Pretender will outshine the Old Contender on the hustings at every turn: the cameras will follow his every move with the hacks in tow to gush over his every utterance.

Dion is not about to give Trudeau a springboard from which to launch his inevitable leadership coup. Watch for him to appoint a woman in Outremont instead so he can block Trudeau and help fulfil his promise to have women fill one-third of all Liberal candidacies in the next election.

Of course, since three-quarters of the world's population will die in the next five years because of global warming, Trudeau's leadership ambitions and Dion's rearguard action against them will hardly matter.

Source: CTV

Kinsella's Regrets

Warren Kinsella will probably sue me for saying this, but the evidence bears it out: he is a litigious jackass.

Jack In The Box

Courtesy of Wajid Khan's defection, Jack Layton will now be writing Tory environmental policy:

The NDP will use its new sway with the government to get the Conservatives to shift gear on an "issue-by-issue" basis, just as the party did to get concessions with the former minority Liberal government, NDP Leader Jack Layton told CBC News on Monday.

But it's unlikely the party would be a political ally for a Tory agenda, Layton said.

Since the defection of Liberal MP Wajid Khan to the Conservatives, Jack Layton and the NDP have held the balance of power.
(CBC) "It would be pretty hard to see how that could happen, and we have no inclination to do that," Layton said, adding he would need to see "dramatic" changes in direction before the NDP supports the Tories on issues such as emissions regulations.

Never mind that carbon dioxide emissions, natural and manmade, are only one element in determining global climate, and one which appears to have had little direct correlation with global warming and cooling in the past.

Never mind that Earth's climate has never been static, and has undergone rapid warmings and coolings even during Man's relatively brief civilized period.

The NDP will enforce the Kyoto orthodoxy on this government because there's no way to overcome the entrenched half-truths that the public has been brought to believe about climate change as the coming apocalypse during a snap election campaign.

Source: CBC

ACTRA Strikes Out

VROOMFONDEL:
That’s right. You’ll have a national philosopher’s strike on your hands.

DEEP THOUGHT:
Who will that inconvenience?

MAJIKTHISE:
Never you mind who it’ll inconvenience you box of black legging binary bits! It’ll hurt, buster! It’ll hurt!

The Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy

Here Speeching English

Ah, those inscrutable Chinese:

Visitors to China's capital can stroll through "Racist Park," enjoy a plate of "Crap in the Grass" and stop by a Starbucks franchise for a cup for "Christmas Bland" coffee.

Now the Beijing government is trying to clean up such mistranslations and sloppy editing (including the inversion of "a" and "r" in "carp" on menus) before an expected 500,000 foreigners arrive for the 2008 Summer Olympics.

"Some of the translations in China aren't clear or even polite," said Liu Yang, director general of the Beijing Speaks Foreign Languages program. "The government realized that if they weren't changed, the city would lose face."

What would we do without Chinglish?

The Chinese should be aware and take notice of safe: the slippery are very crafty.

Source: Arizona Daily Star

Use Your Noodle

So rarely do we know the names of men who have laboured to provide the most ingenious of everyday items. Ever more rarely do we note their passing.

Let starving students and others too poor or too lazy to cook a decent meal take a moment to remember a man whose invention has kept millions round the world fed:

The inventor of instant noodles, Momofuku Ando, has died in Japan, aged 96, of a heart attack.

Mr Ando was born in Taiwan in 1910 and moved to Japan in 1933, founding Nissin Food Products Co after World War II to provide cheap food for the masses.

His most famous product, Cup Noodle, was released in 1971.

Its taste and ease of preparation - adding hot water to dried noodles in a waterproof polystyrene container - have made it popular around the world.

Mr Ando said the inspiration for his product came when he saw people lining up to buy bowls of hot ramen noodle soup at a black market stall during the food shortages after World War II.

A lesson to us all: privation is oft one of man's greatest inspirations.

Source: BBC

It's Not A Small World After All

Ivy League professors who question the received orthodoxies of academe are uncomfortably aware that even tenure is no sure protection against outrage from their colleagues and political partisans.

The hasty departure of Harvard president Lawrence Summers following the outcry against his musings about biological reasons why fewer women study the hard sciences and engineering is a demonstration thereof.

Another Harvard professor may soon find himself in the same predicament for suggesting that the world really doesn't operate like a Benetton ad:

While in Sweden to receive a $50,000 academic prize as political science professor of the year, Harvard’s Robert D. Putnam, a former Carter administration official who made his reputation writing about the decline of social trust in America in his bestseller Bowling Alone, confessed to Financial Times columnist John Lloyd that his latest research discovery—that ethnic diversity decreases trust and co-operation in communities—was so explosive that for the last half decade he hadn’t dared announce it “until he could develop proposals to compensate for the negative effects of diversity, saying it ‘would have been irresponsible to publish without that.’”

In a column headlined “Harvard study paints bleak picture of ethnic diversity,” Lloyd summarized the results of the largest study ever of “civic engagement,” a survey of 26,200 people in 40 American communities:

When the data were adjusted for class, income and other factors, they showed that the more people of different races lived in the same community, the greater the loss of trust. ‘They don’t trust the local mayor, they don’t trust the local paper, they don’t trust other people and they don’t trust institutions,’ said Prof Putnam. ‘The only thing there’s more of is protest marches and TV watching.’

Lloyd noted, “Prof Putnam found trust was lowest in Los Angeles, ‘the most diverse human habitation in human history.’”

Professor Putnam could have found the same results in Toronto as well. Our civic leaders regularly bemoan the absence of a common civic identity and cooperation in Toronto, at the same time that they praise Toronto for being the most multicultural city in the world.

There isn't a city here in Toronto, merely an agglomeration of ethnic and economic enclaves.

And while that brings us a plethora of ethnic restaurants and cultural festivals, it doesn't encourage civic cooperation.

Source: American Conservative

Leaving The Scene

Provincial cabinet minister has a little too much to drink, hits a car with a couple of journalists in it, then runs, while a professional photographer records the event.

You'd almost think it was a setup, if it weren't just an incredible run of bad luck.

Read the rest here.

Baird The Beard

Giggling schoolgirl reporterette Jane Taber gushes about Environment Minister John Baird, the up-and-comer in the Harper cabinet:

John Baird is the other man in Laureen Harper's life, often called upon to button up his tux and escort Mrs. Harper around town when her husband, the Prime Minister, is away.

"I love John," Mrs. Harper said yesterday. "He is a great guy, he is fun to be around, he looks good in a tux and he is a great date. He is also a lover of felines."

Well, of course Baird is the perfect escort for the PM's wife. Harper never has to worry about him trying to make a pass at her.

More Taberesque fluff here.

Shuffle Demons

The lineup:

Rob Nicholson: Justice. A promotion from House Leader and Democratic Reform.

Monte Solberg: Human Resouces & Social Development. A definite step-up from Immigration & Citizenship, where his strengths as an economic critic were never put into serious play.

Vic Toews: Justice to Treasury Board. A sideways move in reality, if an unfortuante capitulation to the liberal elites who didn't want a social conservative in the job.

Rona Ambrose: Environment to Intergovernmental Affairs (for the Constitution and fiscal imbalance related questions to blow up in her face); Western Economic Diversification (to hand out the pork to the starving masses of Saskatchewan) and President of the Queen's Privy Council (a sinecure to hide her away in for a while).

Diane Finley: Citizenship & Immigration. Switching jobs with Solberg. A step down to a portfolio no Conservative can ever look good in.

John Baird: Environment. Big, big, step up for one of Harper's most trusted lieutenants. All of Ambrose's positives (young, energetic, telegenic, intelligent) without a big negative (Albertan too close to the oilpatch to buy into Kyoto.)

Peter Van Loan: Government House Leader & Democratic Reform. Of course, he was just keeping the seat warm at Intergovernmental Affairs for Rona.

No less important is who didn't move: Jim Flaherty, Maxime Bernier, Stockwell Day, Tony Clement and (inexplicably) Peter MacKay. We know now, a year into the government, who's trusted to manage their departments without PMO hovering over their shoulders.

And if she wasn't from Calgary, Diane Ablonczy would be in Cabinet by now. She's just too talented not to be. But then, considerations of regional balance ensure that some weaklings get in and some capable folk get left out.

Wrath For Khan

By now, the only people who haven't heard about the upcoming federal cabinet shuffle are the comatose and nomads wandering in the Gobi Desert.

So let's discuss some related news: the fate of Liberal MP/special Middle East affairs adviser Wajid Khan:

The strange, dual-political citizenship of Wajid Khan – the Liberal MP serving since last summer as "special adviser" to the Conservative prime minister on the Middle East and Afghanistan – may be coming to an end this week.

But whether Khan intends to stay as a Liberal or cross the floor to the Conservatives became more of a mystery yesterday when neither he nor the Prime Minister's Office wanted to answer any questions about the political future of the MP for Mississauga-Streetsville.

....

The mystery may not be allowed to last for too long, though. New Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion is due to sit down with Khan by the end of this week.

A spokesperson for Dion said yesterday that the discussion would include questions about the MP's future political allegiance.

"He is scheduled to come in and meet Stéphane later on this week. ... I'm sure it's something that will be addressed when they meet," said André Fortin, Dion's spokesperson.

Khan was named last August to be Harper's special adviser on the Middle East and Afghanistan, even though he reportedly made clear he'd serve the Tory PM while remaining part of the Liberal caucus.

Tapping the unique expertise of an opposition MP on a sensitive issue would seem to be a statesmanlike act; haven't we all been told ad nauseam that we want Parliament to play fewer partisan political games?

Apparently the Liberals haven't grasped the concept of MP as more than a mere partisan.

And so they're about to lose him to a party that does.

And a Muslim MP at that, in Al-Mississauga.

Spanish Fly

Apologist for Fidel Castro's regime never tire of reminding us that Cuba has the world's finest public health care system.

So fine is it, that in his dying days, Castro has decided to go to Spain for his palliative care:

Fidel Castro was rumoured to be having hospital treatment in Spain.

According to internet reports, the Cuban dictator is staying in a restricted wing of the Gregorio Maranon Hospital in Madrid.

He is said to have arrived on the same plane as the Spanish surgeon who flew to Cuba last week to treat him at the request of the island's authorities.

Jose Luis Garcia Sabrido, who works at Gregorio Maranon has denied reports that Castro, 80, is suffering from cancer.

The surgeon said he was recovering well from stomach surgery to repair a problem with his digestive system.

Details of Castro's health problems remain a closely-guarded secret although Cuban authorities have denied he has terminal cancer, as U.S. intelligence officials have claimed.

Sceptics may point to actual photographic and anecdotal evidence to demonstrate why Castro has suddenly decided not to trust his life to the system that he built. But of course, we all know that it's propaganda produced by CIA-backed Miami-based exiles, and that Castro's trip to Spain is simply for a holiday change in scenery.

(Incidentally, Baltazar Garzon hasn't popped up to slap an arrest warrant on Castro while he's in the country. But we're sure that it is simply an oversight on the good judge's part.)

Source: Daily Mail

Come A Copper

Bring me the head of Taras Shevchenko:

A Burlington recycling plant says it paid less than $1,000 for the head of the Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko.

Halton Regional Police found the bronze at Thomson Metals and Disposal yesterday. The statue, valued at more than $350,000, was reported missing over the weekend from the Shevchenko Memorial Park in Oakville.

The monument, which had been crudely cut off at the ankles, was stolen for its copper content.

....

Statue thefts in an age of high copper prices are becoming increasingly common, said Arnold Knapp, consultant with Canadian Copper and Brass Development Association, yesterday. He said the bronze used in statues normally contains about 85% copper alloy. Once that bronze is melted down for resale, he said, it can never be turned into pure copper but can still be a valuable product to use in other castings.

"We have a large number of copper thefts in the region," said Halton Detective Greg Sullivan yesterday. "On Christmas Eve there was a break-in at a factory in Oakville where a bunch of different metals were stolen."

The statue of Taras Shevchenko was a gift from the Soviet Union to mark the 60th anniversary of Ukrainian immigration to Canada. Shevchenko is considered by some to be the Ukrainian equivalent to Shakespeare. As a 19th century poet, he produced more than one thousand literary works.

When the statue was erected in 1951, tens of thousands attended its unveiling. At the time, the monument was the centrepiece of a Ukrainian children's summer camp. While the camp closed in 1998, many still visit the park to see the historical figure.

Copper theft is the in thing in theft these days, with copper prices having doubled over the past few years.

Fortunately (or not), it has its own built-in deterrent: electrocution. Copper thieves have been frying themselves on power poles and substations trying to strip copper from power cable with an almost alarming regularity.

Until demand for copper falls off enough as consumers switch to cheaper substitutes where possible, expect no man's eavestroughs or power lines to be safe.

Passport To Safety

If, for some inexplicable reason, Somalia were as hot a vacation spot as Lebanon, these two fine upstanding Canadian passport holders would have been the first lined up for a cruise ship home:

As many as two Somali Islamic fighters who claim to be Canadian were among 10 fighters arrested by Kenyan police, according to separate reports Tuesday.

The 10 were arrested on Monday at the Liboi border crossing in Kenya as they tried to flee Somalia, the Kenya Daily Nation reported.

Two were reportedly carrying Canadian passports, while the remaining eight were said to have Eritrean passports. According to the newspaper, all 10 militants were being detained in the Kenyan town of Garissa. It is not known whether they have been charged.

A Canadian Press report, however, said only one man with a Canadian passport had been detained. The report quotes Kenya police spokesman Gideon Kibunja.

"It's difficult to judge if they are Islamic Courts fighters, but a number of them were Eritrean and one had a Canadian passport," Kibunja said.

Foreign Affairs officials in Canada told CBC News on Tuesday that they were aware of the Kenya Daily Nation report, but they would not comment until they had more information.

How committed to the cause of Islamic rule they must be to be holding on to an infidel nation's passport, in case Allah's cause fails. Not exactly the kind of citizens either country would really want!

Source: CBC

Ottawa Shuffle

Barring any last-minute surprises, Stephen Harper will shuffle the cabinet before Parliament reconvenes later this month.

It's no secret that Rona Ambrose will be out of Environment. Her inability to sell the Clean Air Act in the face of miltant Kyoto orthodoxy, and the need to counter Stephane Dion's clean green image, helped force this shuffle.

But what to do about Peter MacKay?

It may now be safe politically for Harper to dump one of the weakest links in Cabinet, or if not to punt him from Cabinet, to shuffle him somewhere where he can do less harm than in Foreign Affairs.

Three years on from the merger, it is no longer necessary to keep MacKay in a position of prominence simply because of his past role as the last leader of the old PC party. People have stopped thinking of themselves as members of one of the old legacy parties; party factions have realigned along different lines now.

MacKay has proven himself to be an inept, or at least indifferent, handler of the foreign affairs portfolio. The position can't afford a lightweight. Get someone in there with a little heft.

Source: National Post

Selling The Honours

In days of old, receiving the Order of Canada used to require significant life-long contribution to the betterment of Canadian society. Or failing that, significant life-long contribution to the betterment of the Liberal Party.

Now you can cut straight to the chase and get one on Ebay:

A click of the mouse and deep pockets are all that's separating online bidders from a chance to own a rare piece of Canadian history that ranks among the country's most prestigious honours: one of the earliest Order of Canada medals.

The medal, awarded to noted Quebec historian Gustave Lanctot nearly 40 years ago, surfaced eight days ago on eBay. Mr. Lanctot died in 1975.

The Order of Canada recognizes a lifetime of outstanding achievement, dedication to the community, and service to the country.

As of 5 p.m. ET Friday, nine bids had been registered on the popular auction site for the sterling silver medal, with the highest bid posted at $590. Bidding is slated to end Jan. 6 at 12 p.m. ET.

....

Mr. Lanctot was awarded the Order of Canada's medal of service just five days after the order was established on July 1, 1967.

The medal of service was only handed out between 1967 and 1972. The name of the award has since been changed to officer of the Order of Canada.

"It's quite scarce," said Christopher McCreery, author of "The Order of Canada: Its Origins, History and Development."

"There are only 389 awarded, of which there are only about 125 that are still in existence because the remainder were exchanged for the officer insignia and melted by the Royal Canadian Mint."

Selling such medals has always seemed distasteful; what has been given as an honour by a grateful nation should not be the subject of mere commerce.

Source: Globe and Mail