Immigration has ‘no positive effect’ on Britain, finds landmark report

The Government’s claims to justify mass immigration was last night demolished by experts who demanded a cap on future arrivals.

The landmark study, the most authoritative ever carried out by a Parliamentary committee, dismissed out of hand the Government’s “preposterous and irrelevant” assertion that migrants boost the economy by £6 billion.

The cross-party panel - which includes ex-Chancellors, economists and captains of industry - said there was “little or no positive impact” on the living standards of the existing UK population.

It’s because, like Canada, the UK has no standards for who they let in. Really. how many cab drivers do we need?

I’m not sure what the certification rules are in the UK, but here in Canada, even if you have a skill, you aren’t allowed to use it. So even doctors are driving taxis.

Tory ex-Cabinet Minister Lord Wakeham, who chaired the inquiry, said: “The Government’s use of impact on overall GDP as the key measure is preposterous and irrelevant because it does not reflect the economic well-being of the existing population.”

The committee said: “There has been little or no positive impact on the living standards of the existing population.

“The biggest beneficiaries of international migration are migrants themselves, as employment in the higher income countries enables them to earn higher wages and incomes than in their home countries.’

Asked if the economic policies pursued by Labour over the last decade had been a mistake, Lord Wakeham replied: “We have made it abundantly clear we do not believe there has been any great economic benefit from the policy it has pursued.”

From the comments on the article:

Do you think that they are finally realising what the ordinary person could have told them years ago?

On the 28th of March LiveLeak.com was left with no other choice but to remove the film “fitna” from our servers following serious threats to our staff and their families. Since that time we have worked constantly on upgrading all security measures thus offering better protection for our staff and families. With these measures in place we have decided to once more make this video live on our site. We will not be pressured into censoring material which is legal and within our rules. We apologise for the removal and the delay in getting it back, but when you run a website you don’t consider that some people would be insecure enough to threaten our lives simply because they do not like the content of a video we neither produced nor endorsed but merely hosted.

Classy.

Cities along the coast have dimmed their lights for Earth Hour.

So, is the planet saved yet?

UPDATE 8:20: As I look to the apartment building across from me, I see that there are a few stubborn lit windows. One neighbor is sitting in his window, typing on his computer… I caught his eye a moment ago. Heh.

UPDATE 8:50: I just took a walk outside. NO ONE has their lights off. So much for Mother Gaia.

So I went to the movies last night, and saw this preview. From the guy who made Supersize Me.

See? This is what happens to people who wear Uggs. Friends don’t let friends wear Uggs.

A woman in her twenties has died after getting her Ugg Boot stuck in railway tracks and being hit by a train.

And for those of you who don’t believe in shoe karma, and insist on wearing these abominations - at least learn to lift your goddam feet. I’m sick of hearing you shuffle along around me like a bunch of lobotomized mental patients.

From today’s Star letters section:

I really have a hard time understanding the rationale behind the Star advocating for Khadr. To say that he is a Canadian citizen is stretching the imagination beyond belief. His whole family are only token Canadians, using the citizenship when it suits them, just as we saw in Lebanon a while back.

I see nothing they have done to contribute to Canadian society, and we have certainly seen where their loyalties lie. Of course, it seems to be the latest thing these days to decry anything American, and to sympathize with the criminals at the expense of the true victims. I have no sympathy whatsoever for Khadr, and hope the U.S. jails him for life.

John King, London, Ont.

It says it is. Watch it here.

I couldn’t get thorugh the first three minutes, due to 9/11 imagery. I’ll keep trying, though.

Ezra does an in-depth review (with requisite snark) of the coverage of the Kangaroo Court hearing on Tuesday. He add a lawyerly dose of information, which is mind-boggling to the rest of us, but worth the read.

But why was Tuesday’s hearing limited to just one day?

Again, this matter has been grinding on for four years, more than a year of which was in the Tribunal. Richard Warman, the nominal complainant, was given four days for his examination in chief — that is, four days to make self-serving comments, with Vigna leading him along. Why the sudden impatience? Is it because, with the CHRC’s own conduct on trial, it’s just not as much fun as shooting white supremacist fish in a barrel?

It’s long, folks. Pour yourself a fresh cup of coffee, and take your bathroom break now.

Really. Hearings of any kind tend to be boring, detailed, and an all-around yawn-fest. For those of you who expected today’s CHRC hearing to be like the last 5 minutes of a Perry Mason special, you are S.O.L.

MacLeans’ Kady O’Malley liveblogs from the hearing. Part one here, part two here. They haven’t made mention of “Lucy” yet. Maybe things will get exciting after that.

It is dull. It is virtually incoherant. It is about par for any kind of legal hearing. If it causes your eyes to cross, just go read Jonathan Kay’s piece in today’s Post instead.

If Lemire and his ilk have a secret scheme to render neo-Nazis into sympathetic figures, they could conceive no better weapon than Section 13.1.

UPDATE: Part three of the hearing is now here.

Tomorrow is the big day - the day when the kangaroo court of the Human Rights Commission is forced to publicly identify and speak to its own crimes. Entrapment, provocation, abuse of the system…

Some people watch Ultimate Fighting. I will be watching this instead.

Blazing Cat Fur has some amusing predictions:

A guide dog will pee on someone’s leg - CHRC lawyers will explain that it’s raining.

Richard Warman will be late claiming CHRC staffers forgot to cc him on the e-mail. He will later deny under oath that he is Richard Warman stating that Space Lizards have taken over his body.

Canadian Jewish Congress representatives will object to the proceedings stating that the proper rules and procedures of Sharia courts are not being observed.

For those of you who adhere to Christianity, I hope you made time to go to mass (I’m terrible with mornings, so I went to the 5pm yesterday). For those of you who are Christian-by-default, enjoy the chocolate!

As you can see, I’m on a bit of an Easter hiatus. Blogging will return to normal shortly.

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day is calling for a review of border security in Halifax after several stowaways managed to disembark from a container ship and slip through customs unchecked on the weekend.

The men made it as far as Truro, N.S., about 100 kilometres from the border point where they entered the country on Sunday before police nabbed them, The Canadian Press reports.

After crossing the border the men tried to board a train in Halifax before taking a taxi to Truro, where they again tried to take a train that could have taken them to Montreal, Staff Sergeant Randy MacKenzie told CP.

The stowaways speak French and are believed to be from Algeria, according to reports.

Police have said that only a single commissionaire was on duty at the gate on Sunday when the stowaways passed through.

Sleep well tonight, Canada.

Five years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, his memory lives on through wrist watches as people in his home town and birth village seek reminders of a time of safety, jobs and cheap living.

In Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit, north of Baghdad, watches featuring an image of the former Iraqi leader on the dial sell like hot cakes to a mostly older crowd, while younger shoppers like to try them on and pose, watch seller Hamad Younes said.

“People love these Saddam watches,” said Younes of the timepieces, which have a starting price of 100 dollars. “They never stay in stock more than two or three days. The people of Tikrit love Saddam,” he said.

The National Post is doing a bang-up impression of Toronto Star. For a moment, I forgot which website I was reading. In today’s Posted Toronto Blog, Barry Hertz rants about the latest Toronto shooting “tragedy” - the gangland execution-style bullet hail that took place in Lawrence Park last late last week - and blames everyone and everything except the little putz who pulled the trigger.

While I too have held some disdain for Toronto’s architectural failings (I come from Montreal and I lived in Britian and travelled Europe - Toronto is butt ugly), I never would have thought to blame the urban planners for gun crime.

Somebody is doing a good job shovelling the snow in Lawrence Heights. In a video police released yesterday, two men in dark jackets walk down a carefully cleared pathway, lined with thick white snow. They could be heading to the corner store for a litre of milk.

The guy in front turns down a side path toward a building. He pulls something from his coat pocket. It is a gun. He fires a shot. The next image closes in to a tight frame, seen from above, almost the way a movie editor might splice the scene. Only this is no movie, people. As the snow reminds us, this is Toronto the Good, 2008.

Oh the scene setting, oh the poetry. Right, so the tender-hearted urban cowboy goes on to describe the scenes from the murder footage, firing the gun (Get that part, people? Someone actually deliberately pulled the trigger to kill someone… but that’s not the point, is it?) etc.

And he then closes out his piece with the same Intro to Short Story Writing shmaltz that he opened with:

Where I live, we all shovel the snow and we all have pride. In Lawrence Heights some municipal worker shovelled the snow and then got the hell out of there, to leave the locals to die.

Relax, buddy. It’s criminals shooting criminals. I really don’t think the heavily unionized snow remover had much to do with it. He’d lose his pension, you know? And then he’d have to live in like, an ugly building? And ugly buildings, like, make people angry? It perpetuates a deadly cycle, you know, man?

The folks at Babble have discovered their sense of humor. No, really. They’re funny. And more importantly, they’re laughing at themselves.

I’m kinda proud of them, actually.

We must remember in our fight against Islam (notice I didn’t say something twee like “militant Islam”… that’s because Islam is, by its very nature, militant) that we are not just fighting the men. The women are equally dangerous.

A MUSLIM leader who claimed he was preaching at a mosque when he was really carrying out a brutal rape was jailed for ten years yesterday.

Abdul Mukin Khalisadar, 26, held a knife to his victim’s throat as he attacked her in her home.

He persuaded seven men to back up his story that he had been in the mosque at the time.

Khalisadar later admitted raping the 27-year-old.

Seven members of East London Mosque admitted perverting justice and got 12 months each.

Burka-clad women in the public gallery yelled abuse at the judge — and one screamed that the victim was a prostitute.

And…

A female suicide bomber detonated her explosives-laden vest near a Shiite shrine killing at least 41 people on Monday in the central Iraqi city of Karbala, police and health officials told AFP.

At least 73 people were wounded in the blast which occurred near the revered Imam Hussein shrine, said a medic at Karbala general hosptial.

The bomber was a woman, a local police officer said on condition of anonymity, adding that she blew herself up near the shrine among a crowd of people.

H/t: Religion of Peace

If you’re not reading Religion of Peace daily, you ought to be. It’s a great aggregator of news from all over the globe, collecting stories of Muslim atrocities.

Update: More on that rape, from above. Pretty damn disgusting. What an animal.

She was accosted by Khalisadar who forced his way past her as she opened the door.

“I’m going to rape you,” he said twice. She said she was pregnant with twins, which was not true but she was trying to stop the assault.

He forced her to perform a sex act, and threatened to kill her when she tried to escape. He held a knife to her throat, saying: “You love your Daddy.”

Traces of his semen were found on the victim’s body and clothes. She was also left with bruises on her arms, leg and face.

There was an appeal on the BBC’s Crimewatch programme but the assault remained unsolved for almost a year.

The article also claims that he was a teaching assistant for a while. Nice. You want this guy near your kids? I swear, the UK makes such a big deal out of background checks for people who are to be working with children, but this just says to me that they don’t mean a damn thing.

Eleven charges of possessing photographs of child abuse are not being proceeded with at present.

Wow. Must be something in the water in Albany.

The new Governor of New York State has admitted that both he and his wife had extra-marital affairs when their marriage went through a rocky patch several years ago.

In a series of interviews in recent days, David Paterson told the New York Daily News that he had started an affair with “a woman other than my wife” in 1999 and continued it for two or three years.

Two or three years? Some marriages don’t last that long! But, I will grant him kudos for a) being honest about it, and b) working it out with his wife.

We all know how well this went over the last time. I mentioned that women bloggers tend to get insulted on the basis of their looks and gender, and a bunch of mysogynists called me a fat c*nt, thereby proving my point.

Regardless of the taunts and general hate-on we’re often faced with, five more women speak out as to why they blog, what they face, and why they’re not giving it up anytime soon.

Emily, Do you think women are subjects of more vitriol in the blogosphere than men?

I think the old Marine war handbook says when you are attacking an enemy, you have to look for their point of weakness. For women, when you attack us personally, on our looks, how we dress, what we look like, it’s an automatic bullet to the heart.

What we end up getting is more of that because people know women are sensitive to it. When I get hate mail after I’ve been on television, it’s always like “You don’t know how to dress,” “You talk like a Valley Girl,” “Your earrings are horrible.” It’s never, “Your arguments are really ineffective!” (Laughs).

…I mean, I remember when I was on CNN and I basically (debated) this idiot from the HuffPo….When I got home, I had a box full of hate mail…none of it addressing my points or my argument. I got tons of emails about my earrings –how ugly they were, how cheap they looked, about how I should “go back to the mall” where I came from.

Kathy’s on a tear…

Liberals. Nothing ever is what it is. Iraq (and every other war) is “Vietnam”. America is “Nazi Germany”, Muslims are the new “Jews”, trannies in the ladies room are the new “Rosa Parks”…

Everything is “the same” as everything else — unless you make a legitimate analogy, in which case, “Oh, but that’s different!” It’s like how gay theorists see “gayness” everywhere (All About Eve, Johnny Guitar) except where it actually is (gay priests molesting teenage boys).

The political isn’t even personal anymore, it’s shot straight into the ethereal realm of the metaphorical. Analogy is everything.

Liberals never used to “think” this way. I blame the bad liberal arts education they all got in college, with its Jungian archetypal hoo-ha.

With bonus lingerie pinup!

A retired Kuwaiti superstar singer has recently left the Gulf emirate for Afghanistan to join ranks with al-Qaeda and Taliban forces in fighting foreign troops there, according to a press report published Saturday.

Hussein al-Ahmad, who was until recently one of the Gulf’s most famous pop stars, decided to join “his Mujahideen brothers in Afghanistan to support Islam and fight alongside his fellow Muslims in al-Qaeda”, reported Kuwaiti daily Al-Rai Saturday.

Al-Ahmad has previously told Kuwait’s Al-Rai TV that the reason he decided to quit singing was “a dream” where he saw his “own journey from this world into the hereafter through death”.

“I’ve seen horrors and terrors I don’t think anybody else has. I thanked Allah for being alive when I woke up and I was grateful for the fact that He has given me a second chance,” the retired singer said.

“I then informed my family and friends that I would retire from the dark world of sin (singing). Since then, my job has been to warn against arts and their sinful atmosphere.”

The comments are hilarious, especially from the pro-jihad crowd. Tiny minority my ass.