Iranian nuke deal: Obama's Chamberlain moment?

Not quite says Mark Steyn: the comparison "... is rather unfair to Neville Chamberlain"



See also: Barack Obama,  Mark Levin,   Dick Cheney,   George Jonas,   Jonathan Kay,   Bibi Netanyahu, and Ezra Levant

The death of Sun News makes this Arab-Canadian happy

Omar Mouallem is an Edmonton-based writer, Metro News columnist and editor of The Yards:

... Thankfully ... as of this morning, the most trusted name in bigotry is gone. Sun News Network has shut down.

... It was a network that promoted racism—against Arabs, against Romani people, against First Nations ...
[Nonsense.  Ezra expressed his sincere regrets for his comments about the Romani, but Sun's coverage of First Nations focused on issues of systemic dysfunction and corruption among the Indian leadership, the systemically racist regime perpetuated by the Indian Act as well as highlighting competent, successful reserves like Osoyoos. And, Sun's coverage of "Arabs" wasn't about Arabs it was about radical Islam, its reign of misogyny, homophobia and terror; and it was about execrable Western lib/left apologists covering for it.]

... young reporters launched their careers by contributing to a hate-machine that perpetuated prejudice, especially against Muslims ... 
["hate-machine"? Not so much. Sun was a TRUTH machine. But then the truth doesn't cut much ice, even with our often ridiculously PoMo Supreme Court: “the use of truthful statements should not provide a shield in the human rights context” .]

... If the now unemployed Sun News Network staff, or the congenial media professionals offering their condolences to those who lost their jobs, were brown or Muslim they'd understand just how harmful it is to casually sensationalize stories about Islam ... 
[The phony race card, again. And Sun News wasn't "casual" about its coverage of radical Islam, it was deliberate, forceful and truthful.]

... because this is the overwhelmingly white Canadian media ... 
 [Now, speaking of bigotry, that's just ...phobic.]

 It would seem that the real bigot here is Mr. Mouallem.  But never mind, that whiter-than-white, Jewish, lib/leftist, Jonathan Kay, liked the cut of his jib:

.@omar_aok has a point. How is "Islam's war on the world" less hate-speechy than, say, "Jews: scourge of humanity"? http://t.co/2sICJnJofu
— Jonathan Kay (@jonkay) February 14, 2015

Which brought this obvious suggestion in reply:

Because the latter is a long-perpetuated lie and the former is a suppressed truth?

A gripping tale of a hyper-sensitive "brown" guy and his "white" liberal apologist - both of whom have a disdain for the truth.

Liberals in denial

Jonathan Kay's dishonesty, the video

Here's the video version of Ezra's Sun column (see post below):



Based on his conflict of interest, Kay should be immediately relieved of his position as Post editorial page editor. Based on his dishonesty and ethical lapse he should be fired from the Post entirely. Will he be?

Jonathan Kay is a partisan, hopelessly conflicted Media Liberal Party hack

Ezra Levant provides absolute proof in "The book on Jonathan Kay":

Jonathan Kay, the comment editor of the National Post, took half a page in his newspaper last month to criticize me for criticizing Justin Trudeau.
I had insulted Trudeau, said Kay. So Kay insulted me as “cruel,” “hysterical,” “low,” “vile,” “half-demented” and “mendacious.” And he accompanied his column with a huge, unflattering picture of me. He said I wasn’t really even a journalist.

...  the Toronto Star dropped the bombshell that Kay assisted in the creation of Trudeau’s new book.

... I asked my old frenemy how he could keep his Trudeau work a secret from his readers, while choosing what the newspaper’s comment section would publish about Trudeau. His excuse was laughable ...

Well we always knew he was Media Party hack - now we know he's a paid Liberal Party hack. The only question now is when/if the National Post will fire his unethical ass. 

Here's Kay's excuse making today.

Joe Fesh and Bangladesh - Jon Kay gets it right

Dear CBC ... please lay off Joe Fresh

This was the worst accident in the history of the garment industry ... Almost every CBC show I’ve heard singles out Joe Fresh, identifies the Executive Chairman of Loblaws Companies by name, and laments the fact that he has not decided to come onto CBC airwaves to confess his company’s sins. ...

... This feels wrong to me: There are 3-million textile workers in Bangladesh, working at tens of thousands of facilities, many of which no doubt are also in a poor state of repair.  For activists, I see the logic of naming and shaming particular retailers. But the only difference between Joe Fresh and thousands of other Western companies that follow standard low-cost Western outsourcing practices is bad luck. 

... A building collapse is just one of many ways to die in a nation such as Bangladesh. Someone who’s laid off from a textile job surely won’t die in an industrial accident. But penniless and improvident, they might then be forced to watch a child expire from malnutrition or an otherwise preventable disease. Which is worse?

Peter Foster recently said something similar in Lessons for Joe Fresh from Bangladesh.

Trudeau reveals his inner sophomore

Barbara Kay:

How can the son of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, presumably aware of his father’s role in quashing Canada’s only contemporary terrorist movement, be mouthing these shallow, superannuated bromides of the left?

Trudeau père did not waste a second anguishing over whether these terrorists felt ‘excluded’ or ‘marginalized’.

Jonathan Kay:

... Never did the Tory caricature of Trudeau as a dilettante seem more accurate. Indeed, the Liberal leader’s own words are far more damaging than the Tories’ silly and intellectually dishonest attack ads (whose lameness, until now, had been dominating national political gossip this week). ... [It seems Jon has his mind made up about the Tory ads and can't alter it even when Justin once again proves them accurate.  Intellectually, Jon is to Barbara as Justin is to Pierre.]

The NRA - sneer along with Jonathan Kay

Jonathan Kay’s column "The NRA’s monstrously stupid plan to put gun-toting guards in every school" was printed as an editorial in today’s National Post. [Here’s the NRA statement.]

As is typical of many of Jonathan Kay’s "arguments", he relies heavily on sneering, sanctimony and strawmen.

Kay writes: "...the National Rifle Association (NRA) has come forward with a truly batty idea for keeping American schools safe: posting a gun-armed sentry in every schoolhouse in the nation."
[Batty? At first glance, it seems quite practical and affordable.]

Kay: "... [the NRA’s notion that] protecting America can be accomplished simply by getting as much firepower as possible into the hands of "good guys." The very notion that a population can be divided into "good" and "bad" in any useful way is itself problematic, since many of the country’s most notorious killers were unknown to police before striking."
[Don’t be so obtuse, Jon. The NRA isn’t proposing to identify ALL the good guys and ALL the bad guys. The people the NRA identifies as possible armed guards seems like a pretty good first-cut suggestion for who could effectively greet would be killers when they show up at the schoolhouse door (self-identify).]
 
Kay: "Mr. LaPierre envisages an alternate plan that relies on citizen volunteers instead of police. ... The people most likely to volunteer for such a program are ... the sort of hotheads who we often see on cable news, pleading "stand your ground" defences after shooting first, and asking questions later."
[Another dopey strawman. The NRA isn’t proposing to do the selection of guards from a list of volunteers. Almost certainly that would be done by the local school officials and police who know their communities.]
 
Finally, the NRA’s statement was not intended as the be-all, end-all solution to the problem but an answer to the question: What can be done, "... starting right now ..." to protect school kids from the immediate threat (copy-cats, etc)? "There’ll be time for talk and debate later."

Jonathan Kay’s column is a hyperbolic, knee-jerk reaction to a reasonable proposal from an organization he detests to begin with.

Jon Kay on the debate: blinded by contempt for the Tea Party

Jonathan Kay concluded his postmortem of the first Presidential debate with:

“... till last night, I supported Obama from afar, because I was alarmed by the degree to which the Tea Party fringe had co-opted the major GOP candidates, Romney included, on most of the major issues. Last night went a long way toward convincing me that a vote for Romney is not a vote for the Tea Party. ...”

It’s nice that Jon has seen the light but his “analysis” of the debate is blinded by his predictably misguided contempt for the Tea Party movement. As usual, he misunderstands and misrepresents its character and importance:

“... a raving Tea Party base that wants to gut government, destroy medicare and put copies of Atlas Shrugged in every hotel room bedside dresser, alongside the Gideon Bible.”

“... Romney sounded like a normal human being who cares about real flesh-and-blood people — the opposite of the Tea Party vision of America ...”

That’s a ridiculous, cartoonish, cardboard characterization. Sure, like the National Post, the Tea Party has a few extremists and flakes, but it’s a serious political movement with serious objections to Obama’s policies. It was largely responsible for the Republican’s regaining the House in 2010. Also, Paul Ryan, as a strong fiscal and constitutional conservative, is a Tea Party favourite. It’s one of the big reasons Romney picked him as his running mate.

Part of Romney’s problem (at least until the debate) was his inability to connect with independents and that he came across as a RINO (another John McCain) to more conservatively minded Republicans. However, Tea Party Republicans were delighted with Mitt Romney’s debate performance saying that he had never sounded so conservative. So, maybe Jon’s vote for Romney is a vote for the Tea Party after all.

Furthermore:

“... When the subject turned to health care, he didn’t talk about ‘death panels.’”
[Maybe not literally (he’s not an idiot), but he did say that under Obamacare there would be federal review boards deciding who would or would not get what types of care. It’s not a far stretch to “death panels”.]

“On green energy, he didn’t recite crank talking-points about global warming being an unproven myth or a UN plot.”
[Not in so many words (he’s not an idiot) but he said he’d get oil exploration and production, off-shore and on-shore, cranked up, big-time. Implicitly he was saying that global warming is not a serious consideration. Whatever it is, the economy trumps it. And, alternative energy is, maybe, sometime in the future, a possibility.]

"... Obama ... refrained from mentioning the “47%” meme, or similarly snide tweetables)...."
[Virtually all the American heavyweight media pundits, liberals and conservatives alike, were unanimous in being mystified why Obama didn’t use the 47% “meme”. One Dem supporter called it “political malfeasance” on Obama’s part.]

Kay on debating abortion

Once in a while I actually like what Jonathan Kay writes.  Today's National Post editorial "It's no crime to debate abortion" is excellent:

Abortion ... Among great swathes of the political left, and even the centre, the very concept of possible legal reform is seen as tantamount to vicious misogyny.

Consider the reaction to this week’s free vote on Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth’s private members’ motion to create a parliamentary committee that would study the question of when life begins. ... Many suggest that the mere fact of the motion ..., and the yea vote by some Conservatives, constitutes a gesture of hatred. Or, in the case of female MPs, self-hatred.

Following several examples of rabid rhetoric from pro-choicedeath columnists and activists Kay concludes with:

It is to the great credit of Stephen Harper that he allowed members of his caucus to vote their conscience on Stephen Woodworth’s private members’ motion — even though he knew that it would be controversial. His gesture proves that some Canadians — even those such as our Prime Minister, who nominally supports the current laissez-faire status quo — understand that humane and reasonable people — including, gasp, women — hold different views on the subject. If only this spirit of tolerance and sanity might blow through the ranks of hard-left culture warriors, we might one day have the intelligent abortion debate that already has occurred in every nation on earth save ours.

Wrong as usual - Jon Kay on the attacks in Libya and Egypt

When I read this as an editorial in this morning's National Post I thought it must have been written by Jonathan Kay. How right I was! It's typical leftist apologetics for Islam.

His column is a long, round-about 'argument' that reaches false conclusions, namely:

["Sam Bacile" does not represent Western civilization, Libya’s murderers do not represent Islam.]

Kay is wrong on both counts:

"Sam Bacile" actually does represent Western civilization in the sense that his movie, odious though it may be to Muslims, is free speech protected by the liberties afforded by Western civilization, something 3rd world Muslims have no clue about.  And in any case the "Sam Bacile" movie had little to nothing to do with the attack. It was, at best, a pretext for a 9/11 anniversary attack.

Islam is defined by its practioners and its leaders. The Libyan murders are part of a long history of violent Islamic jihad sanctioned by representatives of Islam including the likes of Iran and the Saudi Arabian Wahabists (both "Islamic states" and active promoters of violent anti-Western jihad). Then there's Egypt (now led by Islamists) whose mobs were permitted to freely attack the US embassy.

Jonathan Kay - "Olympophobe"

Peter Foster - The joy of competition:

... it’s time for my quadrennial smackdown with the Post’s foremost Olympophobe, Comment editor Jonathan Kay.

... During the Beijing Olympics four years ago, Mr. Kay bemoaned sport as a source of conflict. He quoted George Orwell’s claim that sport is “bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting.” ...

You didn't choose that!!

The Universe made you choose it!  That's what Sam Harris argues in his new book 'Free Will', excerpted in yesterday's National Post.  Harris believes that we don't make choices freely, but that we are compelled by our genetic makeup and our environment to make the choices we do - that free will is an illusion.

It must be a progressive thing.  It sounds an awful lot like Barack Obama's recent declaration to Americans: "You didn't build that!!"

Anyway, I don't buy it.  I like Raymond Smullyan's approach to the problem in "Is God a Taoist?", a dialogue between God and a mortal which opens with:

Mortal:
And therefore, O God, I pray thee, if thou hast one ounce of mercy for this thy suffering creature, absolve me of having to have free will!

God:
You reject the greatest gift I have given thee?

..
..

And concludes with:

Mortal:
You said a short while ago that our whole discussion was based on a monstrous fallacy. You still have not told me what this fallacy is.

God:
Why, the idea that I could possibly have created you without free will! You acted as if this were a genuine possibility, and wondered why I did not choose it! It never occurred to you that a sentient being without free will is no more conceivable than a physical object which exerts no gravitational attraction. (There is, incidentally, more analogy than you realize between a physical object exerting gravitational attraction and a sentient being exerting free will!) Can you honestly even imagine a conscious being without free will? What on earth could it be like? I think that one thing in your life that has so misled you is your having been told that I gave man the gift of free will. As if I first created man, and then as an afterthought endowed him with the extra property of free will. Maybe you think I have some sort of "paint brush" with which I daub some creatures with free will and not others. No, free will is not an "extra"; it is part and parcel of the very essence of consciousness. A conscious being without free will is simply a metaphysical absurdity.
..
..

  See also, Barbara and Jonathan Kay's reponses to Harris.

"Those wacky Canadian have become richer than us!"

An American view of a "Loonie turn of events". PJTV's Allen Barton and guests discuss the news that Canadians have a higher average net worth than Americans (and why Jonathan Kay is a putz).

Coyne versus Kay on Canadian superiority

Jonathan Kay writes that Canadians having a net worth $40,000 higher than Americans spells bad news for Canadian small-c conservatives. Based on his very selective interpretation of events and the opinions of RINO David Frum, the ever-progressive Kay concludes:

... [Canadian] “Third Way” politics, or you can call it Statism Lite, or you can call it, as Marche does, hardheaded socialism (a term I really like). But the fact is: It’s what works in developed post-industrial economies — both in Canada and Scandinavia. ... fantastic news for Canadians. But it’s weird news for the Canadian conservatives. ...

With a few facts and some common sense Andrew Coyne easily demolishes Kay’s "arguments":

... Add up a one-third drop in U.S. real estate, a 50% rise in oil prices and a 15% increase in the value of the Canadian dollar and it’s hardly surprising to find the financial position of Canadian households has improved, measured against the Americans. It would be astonishing if it hadn’t. But how exactly does this make the case for the comprehensive superiority of “the Canadian system,” let alone “hard-headed socialism”? ...

Compared with Coyne, Kay is a light-weight.  I know, that's not news.

Jonathan Kay - useful idiot

Assessing the state of Islamophobia in Canada

... last Saturday night I appeared as a panelist at the “Message of Peace: Countering Islamophobia” conference, hosted by the University of Toronto’s Muslim Students’ Association and ICNA Canada.

[...]

Just being invited to such a conference is proof of Kay's useful idiocy.

Monarchy versus republic

George Jonas weighs in on the debate:

... My friend Jonathan Kay may or may not describe himself as a republican, but he’s certainly taking the republican position vis-à-vis my friend Andrew Coyne, who (whether or not he would describe himself as a monarchist) dazzles on the tightrope as he demonstrates a loyal subject’s fealty and affection for a hereditary monarch. Kay calls Coyne’s declaration for the monarchy “feudalism lite” and for the concept of royal descent coins ... the enviable word “crotchocracy.”As if anticipating Kay, “A constitutional order founded on love strikes me as no bad thing,” Coyne writes, conflating the high wire of real, DNA-testable monarchy with the safety net of constitutionality that protects plucky Alice in Wonderland in case the monarch turns out to be the Red Queen. Spectacular, but don’t try it at home.

... Another friend who has written on the subject is John O’Sullivan. He points out that “political reforms work better when they follow the grain of historical experience.” This is very likely true. It means that I’m wrong about not trying Coyne’s high wire act of monarchy conducted over constitutionality’s safety net at home. That’s exactly where we should try it — and so we have, for the past 60 years.

Or as Chris Selley said: The monarchy is a terrible idea, except for the alternatives

Blazing Cat Fur outs Islamic anti-semitism in Toronto high school

For nearly a week now, Blazing Cat Fur has been busy working a story about anti-semitic material being taught in an Islamic Madrassah operating from a Toronto high school:

Note the TDSB connection - the anti-semitic East End Madrassah is run from David & Mary Thompson Collegiate.

The East End Madrasah and the Centre Madrasah are affiliated with the David Duke loving Islamonazis of CASMO the favoured Muslims of Ontario Human Rights Commissioner Barbara Hall and Dalton McGuinty's Liberal Party.

This week the National Post caught up with the story (with no credit to BCF, the petty weasels).

Update: Jonathan Kay writes a dopey piece defending the East End Madrassah.  Blazing Cat Fur responds in the comments.

NP's Jonathan Kay attacks Ezra Levant (and his new book about Omar Khadr)

The ever smug, snotty left-lib Jonathan Kay, having eavesdropped on Ezra Levant in the next cubicle (and apparently took notes), has decided that Ezra Levant lacks sufficient "intellectual sophistication and nuance" to process a case as "complex" as Omar Khadr's:

... the two of us were side-by-side cubicle neighbours. He did every telephone call in a booming Rush Limbaugh voice ...

...his style of attack is so obsessional that it sometimes seems like a manifestation of clinical mental illness...

...when it comes to an intellectual endeavor that actually requires intellectual sophistication and nuance — say, a full-length book about the legal treatment of a captured Canadian child-soldier ...

... most reasonable observers would agree that the case is complex.

This commenter captures the essence of Kay's attitude towards Ezra:

Well I don't know, Jonathan. I'd say it sounds a little more like you sat in your cubicle at the Post, and you watched Ezra come, and then you watched him go, and then you saw him put book after book on the bestseller list while you sat in your cubicle and wrote wimpy articles that no one reads. What makes this even more sad is that the only reason anyone read this particular article is because it happened to be about Ezra Levant.

I guess we can look forward to Kay's many "Welcome back Khadr!!" columns.  We can also look forward to Ezra's response.  Kay has handed him a couple of weeks worth of material.

A progressive's take on Romney

Jonathan Kay speculates on conservative motives. Lame, partisan "analysis", as usual.