Rational Radical

Continuing the trend of my previous posting on how messed up Canada’s “justice” system is, I direct your attention to a story about more Recent Arguments for Birth Control, this time in the school and justice system.  First, people need to know that, when they read about cases in court, whenever they see that a “justice of the peace” (JP) has made some kind of ruling, that person is not a judge.  A justice of the peace can be anyone who has minimal post-secondary education in almost any field and has held paid or volunteer positions for 10 years.  That’s the bottom line, although this link to the qualifications for becoming a JP makes it look like there’s more to the hiring process than there really is.

In fact, The Star ran a story a few years back on the farce that is the JP (hiring) system.  Having interacted with a few JPs in different capacities, I can attest to the fact that many of these people should never have been given the power and responsibilities they have.  If you met some of these people, you would understand why there are so many miscarriages of justice in Ontario and other provinces (JPs rule on provincial matters).

In any event, the recent evidence for the incompetence and unfairness of JPs and the justice system is the story of three school officials (a principal–Charis Newton-Thompson–and two vice-principals–Stan Gordon and Silvio Tallevi–at C.W. Jefferys Collegiate) whose case was thrown out because the charges were supposedly laid too late–long after the the six-month time limit in the Provincial Offences Act.  The problem is that police were informed of the crime well after it actually happened.  Then, they laid the charges within six months.  But this asshole, moronic JP Gabriel John is saying the clock should start ticking from the time of the offence, not from when it was discovered.

What is the case?  Well, a gang of six high school boys abducted a 14-year-old school mate, confined her to a school bathroom, verbally assaulted her and sexually assaulted her by forcing her to give them blow jobs.  

It’s unclear who knew what exactly, but it is clear that at least two of the school officials–most likely all three–knew of the assault but failed to report it.  All they did was transfer the girl to another school and did not seek any professional care for her to help cope with this traumatic assault!  You have to understand that they are required by law to report such offences.  

So what happened to these incompetent scum?  One has since retired and the other two have been on paid leave ever since!  At least the Crown says it will appeal the JP’s idiocy, although I have no faith in the Crown or Justice System to actually do the right thing.  We are supposed to be updated today on what will happen regarding the two remaining school officials, but I have equally little confidence in the school board’s ability to do the right thing, which is to fire these two idiots.

The story about this Most Recent Argument for Birth Control speaks for itself:

GUELPH, Ont.–A woman who hanged her husband during a sex game was found guilty of killing him yesterday.  Crystal Boarder, 31, pleaded guilty to criminal negligence causing death. Her husband, Tony Boarder, 46, died of asphyxiation during the hanging in September.  In a strange twist, he had once killed someone during a dangerous sex act and was convicted in 1987 of manslaughter. He was sentenced to eight years in jail for causing the death of a 19-year-old woman by strangulation during sex.

Crystal Boarder will be sentenced on July 16.   Tony and Crystal Boarder, his partner of about 10 years, engaged in “kinky sex games” of bondage and asphyxiation, the court heard.  They performed acts of suffocation with plastic bags and sheets, drownings in the bathtub and hangings in their barn, assistant Crown attorney Pamela Borghesan told the court.

On Sept. 8, the couple videotaped themselves taking turns hanging each other in the barn next to their house outside Rockwood, Borghesan said, describing the footage. First, Crystal Boarder was hanged by her husband and let down. Then, Tony Boarder placed the rope around his own neck and she hanged him. He told her to lower him and then quickly lost consciousness. Crystal Boarder slowly brought him to the ground over a period of about 15 minutes. For the next 40 minutes, she checked his pulse and smoked cigarettes.  Later that morning, Crystal Boarder called the police and said she had accidentally killed her husband during a sex game, Borghesan said before Justice David Carr.

It seems that every day or week brings another example of a Recent Argument for Birth Control in the supposed “Justice” system of Canada. Take your pick from amongst these stories today:

1) It will now be harder to try a murderer or any other monster under the age of 18 as an adult, regardless of how horrible their crime. This is how Canada was from 1984 until a few years ago, when someone finally came to their senses and realized that receiving a maximum of three to five years for killing someone when one is “only” 17 in no way deters crime. It probably encourages monsters to act out, since they know they can literally get away with murder.

If you’re wondering which case inspired this successful challenge to our system, it was a 15 year-old animal who sucker-punched an innocent youth bystander and stomped on him until he died. This cretin was on probation at the time and Cheryl Milne, a douche-bag lawyer with Justice for Children and Youth, a Toronto legal clinic that intervened in the case, thought that five fucking years would be too harsh for the poor savage.

Now this waste of life has to serve only three years for murdering another teen with his bare hands/feet. And with our ridiculous “two-for-one time served” system–whereby criminals get credited for two times as long as they were actually incarcerated while awaiting trial–the teen killer will likely be out after serving only a few weeks or months in jail. Remember, he was on fucking probation at the time of his brutal murder!

2) Youth aren’t the only ones who get away with murder in this country. Today, the day after admitting he strangled a woman to death and dumped her body on a rural road, Wayne Ryczak, 55, a conscienceless murderer, was set free after serving 14.5 months in jail. We can thank this pile of shit, Judge Stephen Glithero, for such a lenient sentence.

3) Canada’s General Attorney stated that there will be no inquiry into all of the troubling issues surrounding the apparently wrongful arrest and conviction of Robert Baltovich, who was accused of killing his ex-girlfriend, Elizabeth Bain, in 1990.  Yet, the Attorney General claimed that he wants to censure the same travesty of justice never happens again.  Yeah, right…How is that supposed to happen, when we give a free ride to the cops, crown attorneys and judges who so severely (and perhaps criminally) messed up the case?!

4) The RCMP claim there is insufficient evidence to bring any charges forward against the Conservative government members who tried to bribe a dying man–Chuck Cadman–to vote on their side. PM harper knew about this and, although the always incompetent RCMP lapdogs say they couldn’t find enough evidence for criminal charges, there is enough information available to suggest that Harper and his lackeys engaged in extremely dirty politics. But of course, nothing will be done.

5) Foreign Affairs Minister, Maxime Bernier, on track to become the biggest douche from amongst a giant cabal of douches in the Conservative government, took a $22,573 TAX-PAID airline flight to attend a two-day conference in Laos, with a stopover in Paris; this was the most expensive flight made in the Conservative Government since they came to power a few years ago. With him on the trip were three staff, two whose flights were also pricey – about $18,500 each – even though one staff member made the trip for only $2,676. With the additional cost of hotels and meals, the total bill to taxpayers was about $70,000. But of course, nothing will be done to these pigs as they line up at the trough, time and again.

Terrorists are reaching new lows.  Bad enough that Ongoing Arguments for Birth Control recently used two mentally handicapped women as unwitting suicide bombers by strapping them with remote-control explosives that killed 73 people in Baghdad in February.  Now, the Taliban strapped a suicide vest to a boy possibly as young as 10 in an attack against a joint Canadian and Afghan army patrol in Afghanistan today.  Sick fucks…

One of the site’s readers is being her usual alert, critical, analytical and wonderful self in sending me the story below. It seems that PM Harper has managed to COMBINE his obsession with eroding government accountability and wasting OUR money in trying to make his government look good. In short, our federal government pays $500,000 over five years to a military think tank to come to the conclusions the government wants to sell to the public, such as extending our mission in Afghanistan.

The contract LIES in its claim to bring an “INDEPENDENT voice for discussion and debate on security and defence issues outside of the academic sphere.”  It also demands that the think tank get mentioned a certain minimum number of times in the media in order to collect its blood money. I don’t care if you’re a fan of that (or any other) war or not. The point is, the government is disingenuously paying a lot of OUR tax dollars on PROPAGANDA and masquerading it as something entirely different.

Equally insulting is the think tank’s claim that it’s not simply a mouth piece for the government. It said “it has previously disagreed with the party in office.” However, the two examples given involve the Liberal government (Harper is Conservative) and involve disagreeing with anything that is NOT pro-war: i.e., slashing military spending and deciding against joining the U.S. missile shield plan.

HOW STUPID DOES HARPER THINK WE ARE?  IS HE TRYING TO OUT-DO EVEN THE MOST HEARTLESS, INCOMPETENT, DISHONEST, EVIL, ORWELLIAN CANADIAN POLITICIAN OF ALL TIME, FORMER ONTARIO PREMIER, MIKE THE AXE HARRIS.

Globe and Mail — May 16, 2008

OTTAWA — The Department of National Defence sets quotas for how many times a year a military think tank it subsidizes must appear in the news media, a contract made public at the request of the NDP shows. Critics say the five-year, $500,000 deal with the Conference of Defence Associations crosses the line from promoting debate to paying for supportive commentary - especially troubling when the Harper government is trying to sustain public backing for the Afghan mission.

They say it also raises questions about the millions spent by National Defence each year on grants to other think tanks and universities and called on the department to disclose the terms of those deals as well. A contract the Conservatives tabled in Parliament this week says the department considers the CDA’s key goals to include the need “to consider the problems of National Defence” and “to support government efforts in placing these problems before the public.”

The March, 2007, contract says the grant is part of a program to ensure an “independent voice for discussion and debate on security and defence issues outside of the academic sphere.” It sets out 13 “expected results” for the CDA, including the requirements to: “Attain a minimum of 29 media references to the CDA by national or regional journalists and reporters;” “Attain the publication of a minimum of 15 opinion pieces (including op-eds and letters to the editor in national or regional publications).”

NDP defence critic Dawn Black said the contract’s terms make her uncomfortable because she believes it helps the Harper government build public support for Canada’s military mission in Afghanistan. “This is part of that effort to try and sell the war. These are people who support the government position on the war in Afghanistan, and all of the requirements of this contract indicate they need to be in the news and the op-eds and on television across the country.”

Alain Pellerin, executive director of the CDA, says his organization has received money from National Defence for decades and the media quotas have been part of the agreement with the military since 2002, when a consulting firm told the department it should draw up more performance-based grant contracts. He rejected the notion that the CDA is a mouthpiece for Ottawa. He said it has previously disagreed with the party in office, including during the 1990s when former Liberal prime minister Jean Chrétien’s government slashed military spending, as well as when former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin decided against joining the U.S. missile shield plan.

Mr. Pellerin said the CDA has backed the current Afghan mission since the Liberals announced it in 2005 because it believes it’s the right course.  He said that media commentary quotas are not something the CDA wanted as a term of its contract, and conceded that the NDP may be right in saying they don’t make sense. “That might be a valid point. … It’s not something we went out and sought,” he said.

Stephen Staples, head of the left-leaning Rideau Institute, a critic of Canada’s role in Afghanistan, said the CDA has to return the cash to National Defence to maintain credibility.  Mr. Pellerin said those attacking the CDA’s contract are critics of the Afghan war who lost the public debate over whether to extend Canada’s mission there. The operation was extended to 2011 in March.

National Defence declined to answer questions on the contract. A spokeswoman said a five-hour window given to respond was insufficient, adding the department would need until today or next week. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office has in recent months exerted greater control over Department of National Defence communications, particularly after the treatment of detainees captured by Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan fuelled controversy. So today media requests to National Defence are often forwarded to the Privy Council Office, the bureaucratic arm of the Prime Minister’s Office, for scrutiny and vetting before a response is given. This process regularly delays answers from National Defence for days.

I am the biggest proponent of parents being involved in their children’s lives.  But there’s a difference between involvement and over-enmeshment.  And then there is THIS monster, aka Evil Incarnate.  You might have heard about the story of a “mother” who helped her daughter exact revenge on a neighbour, to the point that the poor girl killed herself.  The preceding link provides an update to this horrible Most Recent Argument for Birth Control.

Okay, so the writer doesn’t know the difference between “it’s” and “its” or “who’s” and “whose,” but I thought this link to the “10 Items You Think Make You Cool But Don’t” was pretty funny:

http://www.holytaco.com/2008/05/14/10-items-you-think-make-you-cool-but-dont/?redux

If the link doesn’t work (it’s temperamental), you can see the list below, minus the pictures (they weren’t special or anything):

10. iPhone

WHY YOU THINK YOU’RE COOL: You can access e-mails, high speed internet, and watch videos, all on your phone. Because really, normal people around you are so f*&king boring you can hardly bear actually interacting with them.

WHY YOU’RE NOT COOL: I’ve done some research and iPhone is actually a Japanese word that means “something that’s not able to be put in a pocket and instead must be carried in your hand at all times or set on the table in front of you so that any one around you can see it.” This may sound shocking, but when someone remarks how hot it is, they’re not asking you to look up the temperature in both farenheit and celcius, or show them a clip on a 3 inch screen from “An Inconvenient Truth” in an effort to relate this heat to global warming.

9.Ironic Belt Buckles

WHY YOU THINK YOU’RE COOL: Now you can show up in bars and point at your belt buckle and tell people that you are a “Rodeo Champion” or a “Pac Man” or a “Truck Driver” or a “Jack Daniels.” And while they will know that you are actually none of these things, you think you’re being playful and a little bit mysterious. You also think this tactic will help you pick up women.

WHY YOU’RE NOT COOL: You’re the same person who has ironic facial hair (mustache), drinks ironic beer (PBR) and wears ironic T-shirts (Lucky Charms). You spend your entire life trying to look as shitty and poor as possible while, chances are, you have rich parents or a job for an accounting firm that pays you over $60,000. In four years you will be a Republican living in the suburbs and complaining about your 401k over wine spritzers at dinner parties.

8. Blue Tooth Headset

WHY YOU THINK YOU’RE COOL: All the other losers have to use their hands when they talk on the phone. Not you! You can talk on your phone and at the same time safely give some loser the finger because they’re only driving the speed limit. It’s Tuesday, doesn’t this asshole know you have your jujitsu class at 24 hour fitness to go to?

WHY YOU’RE NOT COOL: I don’t give a shit if you’re talking to someone on the other end, when you’re in a Subway Sandwiches and they’re trying to take your order while you say “Listen, you give me that paperwork for the Johnson account by tomorrow or it’s your ass. No mayo. I said no Mayo! Yeah, that’s right, Johnson account on my desk! No pepperoncinis!” it’s pretty god damn confusing and asshole-ish to everyone trying to deal with you. Answer your phone when you have time to hold it in your hand. The only people that should be wearing blue tooth wireless headsets are military field generals and the people that work the day after thanksgiving sale at Old Navy.

7. Quoting Austin Powers/Borat/Old School

WHY YOU THINK YOU’RE COOL: Put on your earmuffs because that woman has a vageen that hangs like sleeve of wizard. Yeah, baby! Those movies are HILARIOUS, thus if you can quote them, by default you’re hilarious too!

WHY YOU’RE NOT COOL: We all enjoy quoting our favorite movies, but let’s put these three to bed. Not only did I have every last bit of dialogue to the Borat movie screamed in my face three months before it came out, but let’s face it, Austin Powers wasn’t funny 10 years ago. And I still have to hear people telling me that “circus folk smell vaguely of cabbage.” On top of it, everyone murders the accents. Whenever I hear some asshole in a bar trying doing his version of Borat, somehow he sounds like a tongueless Canadian with a sock in his mouth. This has to stop or I am going to skip the earmuffs and go directly to cutting my ears off.

6. PT Cruiser

WHY YOU THINK YOU’RE COOL: It’s like a car from back in the thirties! It’s sleek design and throw back look allows everyone tailgating in the parking lot at the Dave Matthews concert know that you’re a free spirit who is all about having good times!

WHY YOU’RE NOT COOL: If you’ve ever wondered what a gay transformer would turn in to, wonder no more. Not only do they call a retarded amount of attention to themselves on the road, when you drive them you look like a soccer mom whose transporting alcohol during the prohibition era.

5. Tricked Out Bicycles

WHY YOU THINK YOU’RE COOL: I honestly have no idea.

WHY YOU’RE NOT COOL: Instead of looking like some hipper, younger version of a real biker (who actually is cool), you just look like some 8th-grader who blew his allowance on sparklers for his tricycle. With its weirdly-bent handlebars and wacky forks, your “cruiser” looks like the elephant man of bikes. Plus, these things are clearly uncomfortable to ride. I love watching some tattooed douchebag try to look laid back and cool after he had to dislocate both of his shoulders just to reach the handlebars. Not to mention, you could’ve gotten a friggin’ car for what you paid for this piece of crap. Dumbass.

4. Fidel Castro Hats

WHY YOU THINK YOU’RE COOL: Wearing a Fidel Castro hat let’s the world know that you’re different and that you have thoughts and ideas that make you significantly more special and free thinking than those who wear traditional baseball hats.

WHY YOU’RE NOT COOL: You know why the Communist Cuba Military can get away with wearing them? Because they carry automatic weapons. You most likely carry a compilation book of Charles Bukowski poems. The tiny bill and camoflauged coloring make you look like a retarded son of a army ranger who had a pair of scissors and access to his father’s closet. I realize you want to tell the world you’re a non-comformist, but unfortunately being a non-conformist means you’re conforming to non-conformism. You might want to ponder that at that next record release party for a band no one’s heard of that you’re pretending to like.

3. Guitar Hero

WHY YOU THINK YOU’RE COOL: Dude, this game totally rocks! I love this song! Hell yes! Welcome to the Jungle, baby! You’re gonna diiiiiiiiiiiee!

WHY YOU’RE NOT COOL: Despite what the commercial says, you do not suddenly turn into Slash when you’re playing this video game. You are playing a child-sized guitar that doesn’t even have strings. It has multi-colored buttons and an on/off button. And playing this video game does not mean you can play the guitar now. If I have to hear someone say “I can totally play ‘Anarchy in the UK’” but actually mean “I can totally play ‘Anarchy in the UK’ on Guitar Hero,” I am going to take a pee inside the nearest PS3.

2. Longboard Skateboards

WHY YOU THINK YOU’RE COOL: You’re just a laid back dude who likes to cruise the streets and board walks but still has the credibility shared by those who ride smaller, more dangerous boards.

WHY YOU’RE NOT COOL: You’re basically one step away from being the little kid at Costco who jumps on the big grocery cart when his mother isn’t looking. Whereas if a normal skateboarder falls he injures himself, you’re traveling at speeds that allow those walking to pass you, and if you fall, you’ll most likely fall on the board and continue traveling. Hence, you’re basically riding a skateboard designed for those without any coordination or athletic ability. It’d be like playing baseball, except replacing the ball with a giant stuffed animal.

1. Funny Ringtones

WHY YOU THINK YOU’RE COOL: A ring tone is a great way to give strangers and coworkers a little peek into your personal life and let them know that your grasp of pop culture is vast. You’re pretty sure that having a silly quote from Monty Python or the Transformers theme song as your ringtone will make those around you realize that you are a the guy everyone else wants to be. There is definitely more to you than meets the eye.

WHY YOU’RE NOT COOL: Having your phone play Right Said Fred’s “I’m Too Sexy” just makes you look (and sound) like an asshole. And the fact that you let it “ring” 15 times while you stand there and look around for reactions to your hilarious little joke not only reeks of desperation, but it makes everyone around you want to cram that phone up your taint. Put it on vibrate like every other normal person and keep your witticisms between you and your collection of Star Wars figurines.

As bad as many TTC drivers are, none of them compares to THIS Most Recent Argument for Birth Control:

Sanschar Toppo, a poor, 40 year-old Indian worker, was 25 cents short of the fare when he got on the bus with his 4 year-old daughter.  He got into an argument with the conductor, which escalated until Toppo and the girl were pushed out of the moving bus and crushed to death.  The conductor was arrested and, if convicted, would face a possible maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.  After the incident, angry passengers set the bus on fire.

So, the city of Fredericton is promoting green alternatives to transportation.  What happens when one local business man–whose business promotes green energy as well–chooses to ride his skateboard instead of planet-destroying cars?  He gets fined $100, which he refuses to pay, for violating Bylaw S-9; instead, he’s going to jail for five days on principle.

Lee Breen, the skater in question, uses only zero-emission transportation and runs a lawn care business using only push mowers, hand clippers and organic compost.  Yet somehow he’s the bad guy?!

The Most Recent Arguments for Birth Control who work for the Fredericton police, justice department, and government should be ashamed of themselves.  They claim it’s a matter of safety and obstruction, but they should know that there’s no grounds to assume that skaters are any worse than cyclists.  Unfortunately, knowing our government, they’ll probably realize that and, instead of making boards legal, those idiots will probably outlaw bicycles next…

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has never known the words “ethics,” “morals,” “humanity,” or “compassion,” so I’m not surprised that this Most Recent Argument for Birth Control broke government rules yet again when he awarded a huge contract–untendered–to a buddy of his. And I’m not surprised that he’s being a dick about it, refusing to take any responsibility, and showing no remorse or guilt, despite admitting that department officials warned beforehand that the contract may contravene Treasury Board rules.

No, what really gets me is that he paid his buddy $122,000 to write the fucking 2007 Budget Speech! Now, if he paid somebody that much money to actually fix the budget, I’d be cool. But that money went to write a speech! Read and re-read that sentence. Then rinse…I’ve been trying to wash the stench of waste, patronage, corruption, and shame off of me since reading that, but it’s not working. Think how much good could be done with that money and all the similar amounts of money wasted on this kind of garbage.

Feel…so…dirty…………so……dirty………..