Leftenant Downfall Isles

[matthew]

Canaduh is dumb, too.

Critics: Quebec town's conduct code 'xenophobic'
Updated Mon. Jan. 29 2007 11:11 PM ET
CTV.ca News Staff

Almost everyone living in Quebec's tiny town of Herouxville is white, French-speaking and Catholic. But that didn't stop local officials from adopting a rule of conduct for immigrants.

Only "critics" see this as xenophobic?

Municipalité Hérouxville

Publication of Standards

The social development and territory security are some of the major objective goals of the democratically voted individuals in our MRC. Hérouxville being part of the MRC, we share these same objectives.
To do this, we would like to invite, without discrimination, in the future, all people from outside our MRC that would like to move to this territory.
Without discrimination means to us, without regard to race or to the color of skin, mother tongue spoken, sexual orientation, religion, or any other form of beliefs.
So that the future residents can integrate socially more easily, we have decided unanimously, to make public, certain standards already in place and very well anchored in the lives of our electors.
These standards come from our municipal laws being Federal or Provincial, and all voted democratically. They also come from the social life and habits & customs of all residents of our territory.
Our objective is to show that we support the wishes of our electors and this being shown clearly by the results of our poll regarding this issue. And our goal is to inform the new arrivals to our territory, how we live to help them make a clear decision to integrate into our area.
We would especially like to inform the new arrivals that the lifestyle that they left behind in their birth country cannot be brought here with them and they would have to adapt to their new social identity.

Published by The mayor and 6 city counselors of Hérouxville, democratically elected.
1

The Standards

Our Women

We consider that men and women are of the same value. Having said this, we consider that a woman can; drive a car, vote, sign checks, dance, decide for herself, speak her peace, dress as she sees fit respecting of course the democratic decency, walk alone in public places, study, have a job, have her own belongings and anything else that a man can do. These are our standards and our way of life.
However, we consider that killing women in public beatings, or burning them alive are not part of our standards of life.

Our Children

Our children are required to attend public or private schools to insure their social development and to help integrate into our society. Any form of violence towards children is not accepted.

Our Festivities
We listen to music, we drink alcoholic beverages in public or private places, we dance and at the end of every year we decorate a tree with balls and tinsel and some lights. This is normally called “Christmas Decorations” or also “Christmas Tree” letting us rejoice in the notion of our national heritage and not necessarily a religious holiday. These
festivities are authorized in public, schools, and institutions and also in private.

Our Health Care

In our old folks homes men and women are treated by responsible men and women. Please note that there is no law voted democratically that prohibits a woman treating a man and a man treating a woman. In our hospitals and CLSC’s woman doctors can treat men and women and the same for the men doctors. This same principle applies for nurses, firemen and women, ambulance technicians. These responsible people do not have to ask permission to perform blood transfusions or any task needed to save a life.
For the last few years men have been allowed into the delivery room to assist in the birth of their baby. They have been with their wives to prenatal courses to help them in this task.
In the said establishments the patients are offered traditional meals. There is often music playing in the background. There are magazines or news papers available and any other form of multimedia that shows our community spirit and our way of life.

[Doctor Rock]

Mmm, something tells me that these Herouxville hicks don't have much experience with people of a different cultural background...

[Doctor Rock]

Well, He's 83 years old... R____ has an 86 year old grannie who sees dead people all the time.  

[matthew]

I went 28 years without seeing an ad for the Canadian military which actually implied fighting, shooting, killing, combat, war...last night, to my horror, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/r_6vK_JSSTo" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/r_6vK_JSSTo</a>.

Supposedly it has been out for a while, but like I said, I rarely watch television. Came home last night and rather lazily flopped on the couch and sat through some real terrible TV shit before witnessing this commercial (with different sound, I believe?) which repeatedly encouraged me to "fight".

While the last few Canadian Armed Forces ads seemed to be admitting that hostile situations were more likely, this is the first one I have seen in all my years that actually implies combat...even featuring quick flashes of someone shooting out a window and the implication of an explosion. They are still somewhat downplayed (they seem to be three-frame shots that you could blink and miss), but this is a massive departure from the Canadian military ads (which were once infrequent)  that I saw from time to time growing up: which always depicted Canadian troops on rescue missions (capsized boats, flooding, avalanches, forest fires, etc.) and sometimes peacekeeping. Other than those 'action ads', the average ad simply depicted the Armed Forces as some "exciting job" where you would learn to use radar and use 'computers' and ...stuff.

Now we familiarize ourselves with the face of an active military?

 

[Doctor Rock]

I've got a couple of news Slogans for them....

Canadian Forces: helping legitimise US intervention all around the world.  

Canadian Forces: fighting their wars.  

Or how about Canadian Forces: protecting whitey is our mission.  

[matthew]

Hilarious bullshit:

I'm sure this is true for the U.S. as well. So many letter writers have explained how this land is made up of immigrants.

      Maybe we should turn to our history books and point out to people why today's Canadian is not willing to accept the new kind of immigrant any longer.

      Back in 1900 when there was a rush from all areas of Europe to come to Canada, people had to get off a ship and stand in a long line in Halifax and be documented.

      Some would even get down on their hands and knees and kiss the ground.  

      They made a pledge to uphold the laws and support their new country in good times and bad times.

      They made learning English a primary rule in their new Canadian households and some even changed their names to blend in with their new homeland.

      They had waved goodbye to their birth place to give their children a new life and did everything in their power to help their children assimilate into one culture.

      Nothing was handed to them.

      No free lunches, housing, medical assistance, no labor laws to protect them.


      All they had were the skills, craftsmanship and desire they had brought with them to trade for a future of prosperity.

      Most of their children came of age when World War II broke out.

      Canadians fought along side men whose parents had come straight over from Germany, Italy, France, Japan, Czechoslovakia, Russia, Sweden, and so many other places.

      None of these first generation Canadians ever gave any thought about what country their parents had come from.

      They were Canadians fighting Hitler, Mussolini and the Emperor of Japan.


      They were defending the Freedom as one people.

      When we liberated France, no one in those villages was looking for the
Ukrainian-Canadian or the German-Canadian or the Irish-Canada.  

      The people of France saw only Canadians, and we carried one flag  that represented our country.

      Not one of those immigrant sons would have thought about picking up another country's flag and waving it to represent who they were.

      It would have been a disgrace to their parents who had sacrifice much to be here.

      These immigrants truly knew what it meant to be a Canadian.

      They stirred the melting pot into one red and white bowl.

      Now here we are in 2006 with a new kind of immigrant who wants the same rights and privileges.  

      Only they want to achieve it with a different set of rules, one that includes a Canadian passport, and a guarantee of being faithful to their MOTHER
country.


      I'm sorry, that's not what being a Canadian is all about.


      Canadians have been very open hearted and open minded regarding  immigrants, whether they were fleeing poverty, dictatorship, persecution, or whatever else makes a person adopt a foreign country.

      And I suppose when we say adopt, we think of those aforementioned immigrants who truly did ADOPT our country, and our flag and our morals and our customs.

      And left their wars, their politics, and their desire to become good Canadians was foremost and unbridled.

      I believe that the immigrants who landed in Canada in the 1900's deserve better than that for the toil, hard work and sacrifice in raising future generations to create a land that has become a  beacon for those legally searching for a better life.  

      I think they would be appalled that they are being used as an example by  those waving foreign country flags, fighting foreign battles on our soil, trying to oblige Canadians to change to suit their religions and cultures, often from which they fled to refuge in Canada; and wanting to change our country's fabric by claiming discrimination when we do not give into their demands.

      P.S.  Pass this on to everyone you know!!!

      KEEP THIS LETTER MOVING!!


       I hope this letter gets read by millions of people all across the nation.

[Doctor Rock]

Whoever wrote that piece of shit immigrant bashing diatribe has a very poor knowledge of Canadian history, and he clearly doesn't know much about immigrants... There's a mural in a church built by the Italian community in the Montreal neighbourhood of St. Leonard that has a depiction of Mussolini, a clear reminder that immigrants don't leave the politics of their homeland behind.  How could they? Why should they?  First generation immigrants rarely accept total insertion into the culture of the country they've immigrated into.  I know a bunch of old timers in the Portuguese community who've been here for over 40 years, and they can barely speak French or English.  They live their lives entirely in Portuguese. But their children, and their grandchildren have completely integrated into mainstream society.  Mind you, mainstream society hasn't rejected them (they were a bit swarthy, but they were still whiteys) so they were able to integrate.  I don't know if this will be the case with the new communities, who are mostly composed of visible minorities.  That's probably what bothers the new anti-immigration dickheads: they just don't like them darkies, muslims or chinks, and that's why they invented this bullshit past were European immigrants integrated upon arrival.  

[Doctor Rock]

Anyway, he must have got the rhetoric from US right wingers, it's like he picked up one of their bullshit immigrant bashing leaflets and changed a few names.

[matthew]

I always wondered who made those atrocious pro-war/militaristic/nationalistic videos...the answer is...people like my cousin.

[matthew]

                                                                                                                                                                                I love how he mentions "band practice" when there is no band to speak of, and that he credits himself with "Drums, Dubek, Bass, Strings et al.", when he actually played a synthesizer. There are no strings, he owns no bass or dubek or drums (the two drum sets seen in the video are not his and nowhere near his "studio" (his hideous office with sound board, synth and computer). I mean, it's not like they even SOUND like real instruments. They do sound like shit...and I do not know whether to laugh or cry when I see those shots of his fat ass behind the drum set making his rockgasm faces.

Okay, I believe it is both sad and funny.

Still, one has to really give him credit for capturing the "middle-easterny-sound " in the 'chorus'  

[matthew]

Harper government to unveil get-tough national drug strategy

THE CANADIAN PRESS

September 29, 2007 at 4:50 PM EDT

OTTAWA — Health Minister Tony Clement will announce the Conservative government's anti-drug strategy this week with a stark warning: "the party's over" for illicit drug users.

"In the next few days, we're going to be back in the business of an anti-drug strategy," Mr. Clement told The Canadian Press.

"In that sense, the party's over."

Shortly after taking office early last year, the Conservatives decided not to go ahead with a Liberal bill to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana.

Since then, the number of people arrested for smoking pot has jumped dramatically in several Canadian cities, in some cases jumping by more than one third.

Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa and Halifax all reported increases of between 20 and 50 per cent in 2006 of arrests for possession of cannabis, compared with the previous year.

As a result thousands of people were charged with a criminal offence that, under the previous Liberal government, was on the verge of being classified as a misdemeanour.

Police forces said many young people were under the impression that the decriminalization bill had already passed and were smoking up more boldly than they've ever done before.

Mr. Clement says his government wants to clear up the uncertainty

"There's been a lot of mixed messages going out about illicit drugs," Mr. Clement said in an interview Saturday after a symposium designed to bring together Canada's arts and health communities to combat mental health issues.

There's also a health-care cost element to suggesting to young people that using illicit drugs is OK, the minister said.

"The fact of the matter is they're unhealthy," Mr. Clement said.

"They create poor health outcomes."

For too long, Mr. Clement argues, governments in Canada have been sending the wrong message about drug use. It's time, he says, to take a tougher approach to dealing with the problem.

"There hasn't been a meaningful retooling of our strategy to tackle illicit drugs in over 20 years in this country," Mr. Clement said.

"We're going to be into a different world and take tackling these issues very seriously because (of) the impact on the health and safety of our kids."

The Conservatives' wide-ranging $64-million anti-drug strategy is expected to combine treatment and prevention programs with stiffer penalties for illicit drug use, and a crackdown at the border against drug smuggling.

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson and Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day will join Mr. Clement in announcing the plan as part of a range of initiatives to be unveiled by the Tories surrounding next month's throne speech.

Mr. Clement said treatment and prevention programs were his key priorities for the health element of the drug strategy.

"Yes, there's a justice issue to that," he said.

"But there's also a treatment issue, there's also a prevention issue."

Mr. Clement has suggested in the past that he opposes so-called harm reduction strategies for combatting illegal drug use, including safe-injection sites where nurses provide addicts with clean needles and a safe place to use drugs.

At a Canadian Medical Association meeting last month, he was quoted saying "harm reduction, in a sense, takes many forms. To me, prevention is harm reduction. Treatment is harm reduction. Enforcement is harm reduction."

The following day, a petition signed by over 130 physicians and scientists was released, condemning the Conservative government's "potentially deadly" misrepresentation of the positive evidence for harm reduction programs.

Vancouver's Insite safe injection clinic is facing a December 31 deadline for the renewal of a federal exemption that allows it to operate.

Critics of the Conservative government's approach to illicit drug use say the federal government would be making a serious mistake by failing to renew the exemption.

"I think there's very little chance that Mr. Clement will extend the safe injection site's permit to continue," says Dr. Keith Martin, a British Columbia Liberal MP and former substance-abuse physician.

"But in doing that they will be essentially committing murder."

Advocates say safe-injection sites help to prevent the spread of serious diseases, including AIDS and Hepatitis by preventing users from sharing needles while opponents say the sites simply promote illegal drug use.

Dr. Martin says he's all for increasing penalties for people who sell illegal drugs, including gangsters, but wonders why the Tories would want to target users when he says similar strategies in other countries haven't worked.

"I can't understand why the Conservatives are embracing a war-on-drugs approach that has proven to fail," he said.

"By all means, go after the pushers. By all means, absolutely go after the organized crime gangs that are the real parasites in this situation," he added.

"But for heaven's sake, treat the user as a medical problem and adopt the solutions that have proven to work in other countries."


I wonder if this was one of the agreements at the "Security and Prosperity Partnership" summit in Montebello.

North America will be a fascist "Children of Men"-esque land in just a few decades.

[matthew]

oops.

Canada to rewrite manual US criticized
By CHARMAINE NORONHA - Associated Press Writer

TORONTO --
Canada's foreign ministry said Saturday that it will rewrite a training manual used by Canadian diplomats that lists the United States as a site of possible torture following pressure from its closest ally.

The department document, released Friday, singled out the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay. It also names Israel, Afghanistan, China, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Syria as places where inmates could face torture.

"I regret the embarrassment caused by the public disclosure of the manual used in the department's torture awareness training," Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier said in a statement issued Saturday.

"It contains a list that wrongly includes some of our closest allies. I have directed that the manual be reviewed and rewritten. The manual is neither a policy document nor a statement of policy. As such, it does not convey the government's views or positions," the statement added.

Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Marina Wilson said Saturday that she could not say yet how long it would take to review the manual or what the process might involve.

The document prompted a sharp response from the U.S., a key NATO ally and trading partner, which asked to be removed from the manual.

"We find it to be offensive for us to be on the same list with countries such as Iran and China. Quite frankly it's absurd," U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins told The Associated Press on Friday. "For us to be on a list like that is just ridiculous."

He said the U.S. does not authorize or condone torture. "We think it should be removed and we've made that request. We have voiced our opinion very forcefully," Wilkins said.

An Israeli Embassy spokesman also said that the ambassador of Israel would expect his country to be removed from the list.

A Canadian citizen, 21-year-old Omar Khadr, is in custody at Guantanamo on charges that include killing a U.S. medic with a grenade during a July 2002 firefight in Afghanistan.

He has claimed in the past that he's been abused, but Canadian Foreign Affairs officials have said they accept U.S. assurances Khadr has been treated humanely. Human rights groups believe Canada has not done enough to ensure Khadr, who has been in custody since he was 15, is being fairly treated.

The government inadvertently released the manual to lawyers for Amnesty International who are working on a lawsuit involving alleged abuse of Afghan detainees by local Afghan authorities, after the detainees were handed over by Canadian troops.

The document offers a section on laws prohibiting torture and what diplomats should do when cases are suspected. It cites interrogation techniques such as stripping prisoners, blindfolding and sleep deprivation.

Alex Neve, secretary general of Amnesty International, said that he's unhappy with Canada's decision to rewrite the manual.

"It was commendable to see that manual, which seemed to include an important section that was an objective assessment of human rights concerns around the world," said Neve. "To see that now be undermined by concerns about embarrassing allies is very disappointing."
Associated Press Writer Rob Gillies contributed to this report.

[Just Some Girl]

ILTS!

[Jeff]

We just received a campaign flyer in the mail for Republican Steve Greenberg, who is apparently running for Congress on a "fight immigration!" platform.

Naturally, we're not his ideal target audience, but then, it wasn't addressed to us. It was addressed to a previous resident:
 Babu Mohammed Adbul Rahman.

Somehow, I don't think Babu would be feeling this one, either.