Harper gang determined to milk niqab controversy to the very last racist vote

Yesterday I erroneously referred to the Federal Court of Appeal as the country's "top" court. It isn't. The top court would be the Supreme Court of Canada.

Therefore it shouldn't come as a shock that Big Steve plans to keep the phoney niqab issue alive by promising to appeal yesterday's rejection of the niqab ban by the Court of Appeal to the Supreme Court. Observant Muslim women who choose to cover up in public would, if the Harperites prevail, join the one other identifiable, or rather unidentifiable group for whom covering up in public has been criminalized; anti-government protesters.

Two years ago Harper's Holy Rollers used their majority to steam-roll Bill C-309 through Parliament. That's a pungent piece of police-state legislation that makes it a criminal offence, punishable by up to ten years in prison, for anyone to cover their face at any gathering that the notoriously thin-skinned Harper gang deems "unlawful."

Makes you wonder where this country is headed, doesn't it? Luckily, there's still one group that's allowed to hide their identity while out and about in public...

More proof that Canada is governed by morons

So Health Minister Rona Ambrose is outraged that the Supreme Court has decreed that consumers of medical marijuana will no longer be forced to set it afire and inhale it into their lungs in order to consume it.

Outraged, no less!

Yup, you can legally get a prescription for marijuana in Canada, but it you deviate from the technicalities of the law and bake up a batch of special brownies, you're a criminal. The only way to legally take the stuff is by smoking it.

That's just stupid!

Until today, when the court ruled in favour of common sense. Now, that five year old prescribed marijuana to control his epilepsy will no longer have to fire up a fattie to take his medicine.

Ms. Ambrose claims she is outraged because marijuana has never gone through the formal testing and approval process to scientifically prove it is effective and safe. That's another way of saying Big Pharma hasn't given weed the thumbs up, but that's because they fear it'll cut into their obscene profits. Here's a list of Big Pharma products deemed safe but later withdrawn because they were found to have unintended side effects, like killing people.

So Ms. Ambrose is outraged, but somewhere high in the sky, Wally Tucker is smiling!

Big Steve's latest bully attack on Omar Khadr slapped down by Canada's supreme court after record-setting half hour of deliberation

Normally, the supreme court takes months to deliberate over a case.

Harper's latest gratuitous attack on Canada's most famous child soldier took less than half an hour of deliberation.

To say that means the supremes found the government's case "without merit" would be understating things by a wide margin.

They even awarded Khadr his legal costs, to be picked up by taxpayers like you and me. While I'm not happy about that, I realize that's not the fault of Omar Khadr; the blame lies squarely with the Harper gang.
Their relentless bullying of Khadr has been one disgusting shit-show. This is their third loss at the highest court. Are they done yet?

No. They're appealing the decision to grant Khadr bail. No doubt they'll lose that too.

The cynical hypocrisy of Canada's new prostitution law

As with all professions, prostitution is subject to a fairly rigid hierarchy.

At the top you've got a relatively small number of young women and sometimes men who specialize in an elite clientèle, people who are prepared to pay thousands of dollars for the company of one or more attractive youthful companions. This is where you meet folks for whom their prostitution career was a rational choice.

Then you've got your middle-class, folks who work from massage parlours, with escort services, or out of their own homes. They too look at their craft as a viable career option.

The base of the pyramid is comprised of the stereotypical street-corner working girl who needs money for her next hit of whatever. This is where exploitation, abuse, and addiction run rampant. This is the cohort most in need of legal protection.

So the Harper gang, stung by last year's Supreme Court ruling against the old prostitution laws, has brought in something just as toxic.

Yup, prostitution is legal.

But buying the services of a prostitute is not.

Nor is advertising.

Nor is any discussion about a price for services.

Obviously, the new law entrenches everything that was wrong with the old law, which the Supreme Court struck down, which may give you some insight as to why Harper is so determined to fiddle with the make-up of the Supreme Court.

I recall visiting the cities of Hamburg and Amsterdam back in the early seventies. Both cities had neighbourhoods in which any imaginable sexual service was available for a price. The sex workers were considered legitimate citizens who paid taxes and were part of their community. That's the exact opposite of what the Alliance Church crowd in Ottawa hopes to achieve with this latest law.

We want to further marginalize the most dis-enfranchised members of the community.

Why?

Well, if you're part of the Alliance Church crowd, you already know the answer;

BECAUSE THEY'RE BAD!

If the Harper gang can rig the Supreme Court with people who see it that way, they'll be home free for the next thirty years!

Top court refuses to hear torture case as Harper prepares to lecture Chinese on human rights

The Supreme Court of Canada on Thursday refused to hear an appeal brought by three muslim Canadians who claim they were tortured in Syria and Egypt because of information provided by Canada.

As you know, Canada is a light unto the nations when it comes to human rights. No humans have more rights than the lucky humans who count themselves Canadians. We have even exported our superior moral code in the form of the R2P doctrine that was used as the official excuse for NATO's rape of Libya.

There are some Canadians who would quibble with this assessment of Canada's moral superiority, but every party needs a pooper, is what I say. Those Indians in Attawapiskat, for example, who'd be freezing to death in their home and native land right now were it  not for the intervention of the International Red Cross.

The Harper government  had them figured out right away as a bunch of malcontent whiners. Send food! Send fuel oil? We're freezing and starving!...

Well, if you are, the Harperites replied, you have no one to blame but your own lazy and corrupt selves. Just look at the money we have lavished on you!

Same deal with these muslims now making their extravagant claims about torture. And they are but the tip of the proverbial ice-berg, let me assure you. Please note that none of  these whiners claim to have been actually tortured in Canada! See what I mean? Our moral superiority remains intact.

No, we have adopted the out-sourcing model for torturing our nere-do-wells. We send our Arab malcontents to friendly Arab states for "enhanced interogation," along with a list of questions we would like the enhanced interogators to ask. Our  friends in Syria or Egypt or Libya do all the interogation, apply all the enhancements, and clean Canadian hands stay clean!

None of which is likely to impress the Chinese when PM Harper delivers his obligatory rant about human rights when he visits next month. Not human rights abuses in Canada, of course, but in China. He'll say just enough to get a few headlines back in Canada; Harper chastises Chinese on human rights record.

Then it'll  be on to the nitty gritty of the visit; Harper  pleads with Chinese to buy our dirty oil.