Drive in Sex Garages

Well this is good news. I am not even going to talk about the entrepreneurial person, read: disgusting pervert, who has decided to built a brothel in time for the World Cup.

All I want to point out is that the City of Dortmund, has decided to build "Drive in Sex Garages" to keep the prostitution off the streets. (And by prostitution, they actually do not mean solicitation, but the actual, er, performance.)

Well, perhaps next the City of Dormund can build "Drive in Murder Garages", or "Drive in Rape Garages" were deviants can freely engage in their immoral exploits and not harm the sensibilities of the European elite.

bluetory on Blue Jays

If you haven't been watching the Jays lately, you have been missing some great games.

I watched all three of their games this week against the Angels. I can tell you that all three games were great fun. I wish I could have gone to Rogers Centre for them.

I have a feeling that this might be a year for the good guys. They have a great team and are only 3 games behind Oakland for the wild card spot. (4 games behind Boston for the Division.) If they can do well in their next two series (win against Texas, and split aginst the White Sox,) they have a real chance at this.

UPDATE: As some of you know, I work in Orange County, California, the home of the Los Angeles Angels. I took a bit of flack when I said the Jays would get the wild card spot and take on the Angels in the AL semi-finals. Because of the sweep, I am making it a point to go to everyone's office and remind them that their team lost to mine. I don't think I'll get the employee of the day award.. ah well.. Go Jays!

Journalism: Fair and Unbiased

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you a perfect example of fair journalism.

Here is Helen Thomas saying she will kill herself if Cheney "the liar" ever runs for President.

Can you believe that this lady was the LONGEST SERVING member of the White House Press Corps? Longest serving???

One can assume that the for the first 300 years she was good at hiding the fact that she hated all right wingers, but what about the last 300?

She was commonly referred to as "The First Lady of the Press," who is the First Man? Karl Marx?

Here is something else she had to say a couple of years ago:

"[Bush] is the worst president ever. He is the worst president in all of American history."

So fair. I say there is no bias in the press!

Windows Visa: Cool

According to this "Vista's features will include better ways to visualize data, such as seeing through windows that are stacked atop each other, more natural file organization and faster searching."

The seeing through windows thing is really cool. I wonder what the short cut for that is. I really like Mac's stacking. I know Windows XP has its own version of stacking, but frankly it sucks.

So I'm looking forward to the new Windows.

Yes. I just said that.

War in Iraq, Second Thoughts

I am starting to have second thoughts about the war in Iraq. Before the war started, I was a big proponent of it. In fact, I wrote numerous times, here and elsewhere, that the war would further the cause of freedom and [edit] deal a hard blow to Islamic terrorism.

I am starting to have second thoughts.

I say this not because of the WMD situation and not because my first principles have changed. I still think that free Iraq, Iran, Syria, etc, is a great step in fighting terrorism. My problem is that I assumed the American, and British, forces would be good enough to have finished with Iraq by now.

As it has been pointed out by John Derbyshire, the US war against the Empire of Japan, also known as World War II, lasted 1,347 days. "The current war in Iraq, against a rabble of Arab hooligans, has lasted 861 days. If it lasts as long as WW2, it will end on November 25 next year."

Why is it that the allies were able to defeat Nazism, Fascism, and Japanese Imperialism all in a matter of half dozen years, yet they can't beat a bunch of people who live out of caves in that time? The Japanese had planes, they had ships, they had lots and lots of guns. (And just like today's terrorists, they were willing to die for the cause - although the Japanese had a lot more honour.) The Germans were the best fighting army in the world, Al Zarqawi and his band of buffoons are at best a second tier gang that wouldn’t survive Harlem.

What the hell is happening?

We were supposed to be done with freeing Iraq and well into freeing either Syria or Iran by now! Instead, we have allowed an even bigger fundamentalist to take over in Iran. While the US is spending all its time fixing Iraq, the rest of the region is becoming more and more fertile for terrorism.

The United States needs to finish with Iraq already so it can start scaring the hell of Iraq’s neighbours.

Okay.. this has gotten out of hand

So according to this some Brazilian protestors are demanding the arrest of the British police who fired the fatal shots. "Some of the protesters held banners denouncing British police as the real terrorists."

Okay.. let me get this straight:

People in a country known for its corrupt and brutal, child killing police force are demanding the arrest of a police officer who was chasing a criminal?

A few years ago the press found a film of "six Brazilian policemen who forced 11 residents, including two teen-age girls, to face a wall, while the police rained blows, kicks, and slaps on them for an hour. One of the residents, whacked on the side of his head by a nightstick, suffered a broken eardrum. At the end of the beatings, no one was arrested."

These guys are beating up helpless, teen-age girls.

For a Catholic nation, I would have thought they would be reading the bible more often. As a reminder to these protestors, here is Luke 6:41-42:

41"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 42How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,' when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

Shoot to Kill and such

Here is what I have to say about the shoot to kill policy: I didn't know there was any other way to shoot someone. Let me explain:

A couple of days ago I had a post about the London police shooting a guy on (or is it in) the tube. This guy had been running away from the police and had refused direct orders to stop. The cops thinking that he was a terrorist shot him dead. It turns out he didn’t have a bomb on him and was not about to blow himself up.

I know a little bit about cops. (My first campaign manager was a former cop and I once managed a campaign for an RCMP officer.) So I am not entirely unfamiliar with how police officers work. But I was shocked to learn that there are various policies when it comes to the Police shooting someone. (Shoot to kill vs. shoot to hurt.. etc..)

This seems to me, to be a bit of silly play on words. If you are running away from the cops, you risk getting shot. When you get shot, you risk being killed. Isn't that simple?

Now I recognize the difference between shooting someone 5 times at close range, and shooting someone while they are running away. I just think that we ought to remember that this guy did not die because he looked Middle Eastern, he died because he was running away from the cops. I got pulled over by a cop two days ago. I imagine that being from the Middle East, I look more Middle Easter than some guy from Brazil, but I did not get shot.

You know why? I stopped when I heard the sirens. I then calmly explained that I was speeding because I was from Canada and was lost. The nice California Highway Patrol officer looked at me and said “You’re from Canada EH?” (with the most overdone EH ever) and let me go.

I still think his death was a tragedy and I still think an investigation should be done, but I think everyone knows that good things don’t happen when you run away from the police.

Conservative MP Wrong on China

According to CBC, Helena Guergis wants the government to end its aid programme to China. This is not a terribly good idea.

Although I disagree with them, I do have some time for people who argue for stopping all foreign aid, but I just don't see the point on picking on China. It's politically harmful and internationally silly.

The Chinese community in Canada is very much in touch with their home country. In fact, majority of GTA's Chinese weeklies are, at least partially, controlled by the PRC. So one should be careful about pissing them off over something so minute as foreign aid. You can't reach out to the community if you are pissing off their major media sources. (A lesson that Conservatives need to learn with MSM as well.)

As a policy point, China is not the worse regime in the world that we send money to. (Think: most of the Arab countries and SWAZILAND!!!!) I am all for taking on the PRC on its human rights record (like Jason Kenney did when he was over there.) The best way for Canadian MP's and Ministers to help the Chinese people is by going to China, where the sub-media (through blogs and other things) can report on them, and demanding answers to their questions about China's human rights record.