I hope everyone is enjoying their Memorial Day weekend. I’m sure President Obama is enjoying hanging tough with Chicago thugs like Bill Ayers, as opposed to wasting his time hanging around teh Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Yawn.

I have been away from the Intertoobs for a few days, and probably will be till about Tuesday, with just this moment as a brief respite. I thought it appropriate to mention something about Israel. After all, when one turns one’s mind to Memorial Day, it’s hard not to reflect on the loss of lives that led to the creation of Israel. Both my grandfathers fought for Canada in WWII; my paternal grandpa blasting bridges to slow the Axis troops.

Arabs hate Jews. muslims hate Jews. This topic isn’t up for discussion - it’s as obvious as the fact that today is Sunday. And around the world, Arabs protest the very existence of the Jewish state, often right here in my own city. Today was no different. Palestine House, an organization known to sympathize with terrorists, protested today about so-called Israeli Apartheid. And one of their union-backed thugs attacked a blogger, my friend Blazing Cat Fur.

I was invited to the counter demo today, but decided not to go. After all that’s happened to me in the past year, I no longer have the taste for political or social activism. It all seems to… trite and pointless. My days of waving flags and screaming slogans are over, whatever the subject at hand.

But I wanted to point out to you the kind of behavior that wore me down. BCF was confronted while filming - not a crime - and was manhandled by a Muslim thug from CUPE (Canadian Union of Public Employees). Mohammad Mohammad (or whateverthefuck the guy’s name was) then whinged to police that so9me eeeeevil pro-Zion blogger was filming him. Let’s recap - BCF was assaulted, and the CUPE thug was the one to complain to the cops. This to me was much like my own personal real-life experience, and it is beyond frustrating that some animals are more equal than others.

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Down 2 lbs last week, and I managed to fit into a pair of jeans I bought too-small back in March. Feeling good about the progress, despite the previous setback of 1 lb.

One of my greatest challenges is that protein and fresh vegetables cost more than starch, carbs and crap. But by buying canned tuna and eating lots of eggs, I manage, even on my tight budget.

If you want to try the Diet Solution Program, click here for more information about how you can get started for less than $5.

Oh yay, a whole passel of anarchists are about to descend on Toronto to harass people about the G20 summit. And not only will Ontario taxpayers foot the bill for security, Torontonians will be fucked out of their already paltry medical care.

Hospitals are also trying to free up bed space during the summit week. The University Health Network — which includes the Princess Margaret, Toronto General and Toronto Western hospitals — is no longer accepting appointments for the day prior to the summit and asking patients to reschedule non-essential appointments on June 25, said UHN spokesperson Gillian Howard. The hospital will also try to expedite patient discharges that have already been scheduled.

“Follow-up appointments, or something that can be delayed by a week, we are rescheduling for that Friday because we think it will be quite difficult to get around in downtown Toronto,” Howard said. “We’re not cancelling anything that cannot be rescheduled another time. Chronic condition, cancer treatment — those will all go ahead.”

Now is a very bad time to get sick in Toronto - not that there’s ever a good time under our already stretched system.

I don’t understand these summits at all. First of all, the world’s major players already have a place to hang out - the UN down in New York. Let them gather there. And the protesters? Who are these people that wait all year to descend on some poor city to wreak havoc for no good end? When this happened in London, and a guy was killed because of so-called police brutality, I laughed my ass off. You mess with the bull, you get the horns, asshole.

You just knew there’d be a guy named Mohammad, right?

Three members of a British family visiting Pakistan were shot dead by their relatives yesterday in a dispute over an arranged marriage between cousins.

Mohammad Yousaf, 51, his wife Parviaz, 49, and their daughter, Tania, 23, from Nelson, in Lancashire, were killed in the eastern city of Gujrat when tensions over the breakdown of the marriage between their eldest son and their niece ended in tragedy.

The marriage finished about a year ago but the wife’s brother — who is also Mr Yousaf’s nephew — is believed to have harboured a grudge that his sister was being divorced.

Let this be a lesson: Selling your daughter into sex slavery to a first cousin probably isn’t going to be a pretty as you imagine it.

It’s a long weekend here in Canadastan, and the pickings in the news are fairly slim. Here’s what I’ve got for you:

The Montreal Canadiens finally won a game in their playoff series against the Flyers. Woot!

Skippy says Everybody Hates Iggy, which is fact. I mean, even Warren Kinsella jumped that sinking ship, claiming he needed 17 months to help Dalton McGuinty beat Tim Hudak in Ontario. Lame excuse, but you can’t blame the guy (for once).

Muslims are whining about… I dunno. They’re always whining. This time it’s about cartoons. Or was that last time? Hard to keep up.

The mayor of Chicago needs to be locked up for the safety of the people. Seriously.

“Oh!” Daley said. “It’s been very effective!”

He grabbed a rifle, held it up, and looked right at me. He was chuckling but there was no smile.

“If I put this up your—ha!—your butt—ha ha!—you’ll find out how effective this is!”

For a moment the room was very, very quiet. I took a good look at the weapon. It had a long bayonet. (Was it seized during the Civil War?)

“If I put a round up your—ha ha!”

The photographers snapped away. Suddenly everybody started cracking up.

Lock him up, please! Could you imagine if Newt Gingrich or even Wayne LaPierre had threatened to shove a gun up someone’s ass? I mean, maybe Dick Cheney could get away with it…

These people need to use my trick of traveling with a dog.

Van Woerkom gave in his speech an exampel [sic] about the price of mobility.  He said that his wife only drives 4,000 km a year, and that she thus has to pay less than somebody who drive 100,000 km.  Somebody in the hall suggested that in that case she better take a taxi, at which point Van Woerkom answered that he preferred she didn’t, because the driver might be a Moroccan.

If you want to see drawings of Mohammad, head on over to Blazing Cat Fur, who held a contest.

No, not images of Mohammad, or the Virgin Mary made from shit. Finally the art world has found something they can honestly say is offensive: Fat people.

The four removed images include a picture of an obese, naked man sitting at a computer, another obese, naked man whose skin overhangs the chair he is sitting on, a photo of an obese woman vomiting and another photo of an obese, naked woman eating cake.

Mr Yeadon said he found the pictures while browsing online and decided to include them in his exhibition next to photos of fast food.

The collection, which is called, Fat: The mortality of the eater and the eaten, also includes blown-up images of fatty foods and the last meals of convicted US murderers that have been half eaten.

We’re talking about a community that thinks a cum-stained bed is “art”. Where David Blaine hangs from a bridge for weeks in a plexiglass box, and it’s “art”. Where Jesus Christ in a pool of piss is “art”.

But fat people? That’s just icky, dude.

Saudi woman beats up virtue police. Heh.

When a Saudi religious policeman questioned a young couple walking together in an amusement park he got a painful surprise - when the woman suddenly attacked him.

The officer, from the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, asked the pair to confirm their identities and relationship to one another.

Unmarried men and women are barred from mixing under Saudi Arabia’s strict Islamic rules.

The young man immediately collapsed for reasons that have not been made clear, the Jerusalem Post reported.

But before the policeman could do anything else, the woman - believed to be in her mid-twenties - laid into him.

So the boyfriend, if that’s what he is, is a total pussy, as most Muslim men are. Nothing new there. But the fiestiness of the broad is nice to hear about.

Over the weekend I was given a copy of Shootin’ the Sh*t with Kevin Smith: The Best of the SModcast, with the inscription “Where’s my shirt??” If you’re a fan of SModcast, you’ll know that joke. I was lying in bed last night, trying not to laugh too loud while I read it. Love it!

Love this article by Libby Purves in the Times of London.

Besides, the assumption that Parliament or Cabinet should fully “reflect the diversity of the electorate” is ridiculous. You work with what’s there: and besides, there are plenty of prominent women who absolutely do not speak for me, and there are Muslims, ethnic minority members, gays and disabled people in public life whose views are anathema to many within their category. If a thoughtful and (I honestly believe) unbiased Prime Minister chooses more men than women right now, fine. The only important thing — whether in politics, science and engineering, media, churches or banks — is that doors should not be closed by law, that girls should be equally educated and encouraged to lead and to try non-traditional subjects, and that family life should be respected for both genders. With, of course, a reasonable recognition that biology hampers women more. For a while.

Read my lips, indeed!

Cops and Narcos…

Parents in the violent cities of Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana on the U.S. border say primary school kids are captivated by the drug gangs they see on the street and TV news brandishing guns, driving flashy black SUVs and outsmarting soldiers.

Rather than playing cops and robbers and admiring firemen or train drivers, children are inventing kidnapping games and forming playground gangs named after brutal drug cartels as they idolize the power of kingpins whose turf wars have killed some 23,000 people since late 2006.

Children learn what they live.

I had to do math this weekend when I finally weighed in. I hadn’t done so in about 3 weeks. So here’s the math:

Overall loss 17 lbs - YAY!

Gain back 1 lb due to starchy, shitty food

Net loss 16 lbs

Goal for this week 2.5 lbs

The Diet Solution Program tells me that I’m a “protein type”, which means I excel at weight loss when eating a high protein/low carb diet. I think this is probably the case for many people who struggle with their weight. Starchy foods convert to sugar too quickly, and we just can’t metabolize it. Steak and eggs help!

For those of you not up to speed, I’m doing the Diet Solution Program as part of my blog advertising. They’re paying me to lose weight! So far so good, because for me, weight loss is very, very verrrrry slow.

If you want to follow along, you can join the Diet Solution Program for $5 and get all nine of the informative guides and meal plans.

When I call for a taxi, I tell the dispatcher that I’m traveling with a dog and I don’t want to hear a single word about Allah. I usually get a Greek or Italian driver who then asks me where my dog is. At which point I tell him I just didn’t want a Muslim driver.

For years I was careful about where I ordered pizza from. I didn’t want to pay a Muslim for my Hawaiian Deluxe. Only recently have I given in and started eating from the Turkish place down the street from me, and I feel guilty every time. But damn, it’s good.

Why do I go to these lengths? Because of programs like this.

Long before there was MoneyGram and Western Union, people in South Asian countries often used an informal network of brokers, called an “hawala,” to transfer money over long distances when it was too inconvenient or dangerous to send cash by courier.

Today, the centuries-old system still exists and is used to move billions of dollars annually in and out of countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan and Somalia - often to the chagrin of U.S. law enforcement.

Authorities have been investigating whethere [sic] Faisal Shahzad, a U.S. citizen born in Pakistan, was financed by from overseas in his failed plot to detonate a car bomb in Times Square on May 1.

A federal law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity regarding the ongoing investigation, said the money that was passed to Shahzad came through the hawala system.

Here’s how it works. Mohammad delivers pizza in Detroit and sends his tips back to Pakistan. Mohammad2 in Pakistan uses that money to set up training camps and fund “lone wolf” bombers. Mohammad3 in Connecticut is given a plane ticket by Mohammad2, travels to Pakistan, learns to build bombs, and is sent home with a bunch of money collected from all the Mohammads.

Mohammad might have a stand-up job in Canada or the United States, but he may be funding other Mohammads to kill his neighbors. Nazi pogroms made it illegal for Jews to own businesses. I’m not calling for that kind of government intervention. This is the kind of thing that can be done by individuals like you and me. We can skip the falafel. We can ask for a different taxi driver. We can vote for our service providers with our wallets.

By the way, I have a great recipe for shish taouk you can make at home if you want to stop buying it from Mohammad.

It’s not too late to kickstart your spring/summer weight loss! Isabel De Los Rios of the Diet Solution Program offers two great deals:

• Try the diet for $5
• Use the 14-Day kickstart to drop pounds fast

I’ve actually been a little lax lately, and am planning to do the 14-Day plan for the next two weeks, beginning Sunday (I have a barbecue to go to tomorrow, dammit! I’m not going to ruin it!).

I remember when the 15th anniversary of my mother’s death rolled around. That one was tough, because it marked a point where she had been out of my life longer than she’d been in it.

Since her death I’ve managed to pretty much forget things like Mother’s Day. And Easter. And Thanksgiving. Without a mother running the house, I threw out the iron. I taught myself to cook, because there was no one to teach me.

Some people have tried to fill the gap left by a dead mother, but it never works out. My friend’s mother filled it for a while, but someone else’s mother doesn’t offer the unconditional love of your own mommy. My mother-in-law tried to move too fast, and I bucked like a colt. You can’t be family five minutes after I meet you, Ma’am, even if I am married to your son.

My mother died in sunny springtime, two days after Mother’s Day 1991. The third and final Terrible Tuesday (the first one was my father’s epic nosebleed and surgery, the second was my friend Tanya cutting part of her thumb off while helping Dad make dinner). We didn’t make it to the hospital in time to catch her passing, and once there, I went into action. Not giving my father a chance to get weepy - anything but that - I whipped out my list, started making calls and barking orders. Yes, I was 14, organizing a funeral that would eventually hold over 300 people. There was no time to cry.

No inclination, either. Not for her, and not for Daddy five years later. They said I was so brave, so strong. Years later during an argument, Mr Right pointed out that I wasn’t strong - I was brittle. How true. A thousand little cracks in the vessel that houses my heart and mind could no longer be shellacked or super-glued. They were permanent, and the vessel would never have the same integrity again. The slightest bump might cause pieces to fall away.

My mother, thought to be an angel to many, is a demon in my darkest nightmares. She doesn’t stroke my hair or speak soothingly like she did in life. Instead she chokes me, cuts me, her eyes blazing with unholy fire. Who is this woman?

If a girl grows up without a mother, does she still turn into that mother in later years? And does anybody hear it? What is the sound of one orphan grieving?

For shits and giggles I decided to dig out the very first thing I wrote as RightGirl. Not the first blog post from February 11, 2004, but the Manifesto I wrote slightly before that. Here it is, in its entirety, unedited. Funny how some things change and some don’t.

Where were you five years ago? Are you the same now, or have your thoughts and beliefs changed at all?

*************

A Middle-Right Manifesto:
I’m not allowed to hang with the cool kids anymore. They kicked me out of their clubhouse. I’m too un-PC for them. I offend their delicate liberal sensabilities.

It is not cool to be right-wing, and it is downright blasphemy to be right-wing and a woman. People think that if you lean toward the right you are a racist and a Nazi. People think you hate. Do I hate? Yes. I hate Brent, the guy who raped me when I was 14. I hate Vinnie’s mom, who was a heroin addict and used to beat him. I hate Sandy, who used to be a good friend, but who stole my 10th grade boyfriend. And that’s it. End of list.

All these events took place more than ten years ago. I admit, I probably use the word “hate” much more than I should, but those three people from my past are the only ones I really feel it for.

Because I’m conservative, I do not fit in. This is nothing new for me, but it still hurts. It makes me feel like I did when I was 10 years old, chubby, and poor. Nobody wanted to be my friend. They made fun of my tatty clothes, and wouldn’t play with me. It stands to reason that I would grow up to include cats and trees among my closest friends, but it didn’t turn out that way. I didn’t become a bleeding heart liberal inclusionist, righting the world’s wrongs and paying lip-service to others who had been cast aside.

It just kinda happened that I grew up this way. It happened in the very way liberals claim to live their lives - through free thinking and personal choice. Somewhere in my late teens, my mind started working out a few issues for itself, instead of believing everything it was being fed. I came to have my own set of beliefs which were often (ok, always) different from those of my peers.

I believe in a higher power, but not organized religion. Religion is corrupt, and leads to holy wars, crusades, child molestation, and terrorism. Any organization that can support such activities will not be supported by me.

I believe that women should have control over their own bodies. We all should. But I do not believe that anyone should have to foot the bill for anyone else’s personal physical choices. If a woman decides to have an abortion, she should have the right to have one in a safe, clean, privately funded facility. If she chooses to have a baby, she should save up for her own maternity leave, because her company and her colleagues should not be obliged to pay for her decision to have a child. Nor should the government have to pay any welfare to teenage mothers. You reap what you sow, and we should all be held accountable for the the choices we make with our bodies. In the same respect, a victim of rape should have the choice of an abortion, paid for by the state. It was not, in this case, her choice to have sex.

Interfering with a child in a sexual manner should be punishable by death, or at least, by castration. This point is non-negotiable. I do not want to see one criminal rights activist show up at the trial of a child molester. Anyone who did protest on behalf of such a criminal would be advocating the act. When did it become so confusing for the special interest groups? The victims are the victims, and the criminals are the criminals. Try to keep it straight.

Following on from that, I do not belive that child offenders should be given special treatment, just because they are children. Especially repeat offenders. In my father’s day, the big crimes were cutting school and stealing from the five and dime. In this era, the crimes are intimidation, vandalism, assault, drug dealing, and murder. I don’t know what the hell we’ve done or not done to our kids, but the “no spanking, loving, vulnerable kids-are-people-too” approach isn’t working. If they want to commit grown up crimes, let them do grown up time. There’s nothing vulnerable about a 14-year-old thug. Vulnerable is his next door neighbour, a 70-year-old widow, whom he robs for her pension, and maybe breaks her hip in the process.

I believe in freedom of speech. Yes, a right-winger can believe in the First Amendment, too. And in this era of political correctness, I believe it should also apply to those of us who are not so PC. Freedom of speech, like all freedoms, must be coupled with responsibility (it’s in the Constitution). Let people say what they want to say. It doesn’t mean others have to buy into it. And anyone who does buy into the thoughts and beliefs of another is admitting that those beliefs are their own, and will be held accountable to them. Not all Muslims are terrorists, but those who believed the BS that Bin Laden was spewing now must have their souls judged. They made a personal choice to kill thousands of people. No one forced them to do it.

I believe that the welfare system has gotten out of control, and needs to be cut down by 90%. Not 100%. It needs to be in place to assist the aged, the infirm, and the disabled. It should also invest more money in helping the able-bodied find jobs, instead of rewarding them for not having one.

I believe it’s okay to be a housewife. If you choose to stay home and raise your kids properly, and your partner (of any gender) can afford to support the both of you, that’s great. If you choose to have a career instead of children, that’s great, too. However, if you choose to have both, you will soon find that one or both will suffer. You cannot devote enough time to your career if you’re worried about your kid; and vice-versa. Today’s economy is hard on women, because they almost always have to work. It can lead to hard choices. But life is all about hard choices.

I believe in marriage, and the sanctity of it. A partner for life is a wonderful thing to have. You’ll fight, but don’t be so quick to give it all up. Stop being so lazy, and take the time to work it out.

And touchiest of all, I believe in integration. Next year I hope to move to France. I speak the language, and my husband is learning. We are not going to France so that we can eat fish ‘n’ chips, and watch American satellite TV. We’re going so that we can enjoy the food, the culture, and the way of life. To become French. Not to set up a little English-speaking community and cut ourselves off from our host country. If we wanted that, we’d be just as well to stay home and save ourselves the trouble of packing. And the same should go for any immigrant. If you leave your home country for America or Britain or anywhere else, you are obliged to become a part of that place. The host country should not be obliged to recreate your homeland for you. If it was so special, why did you leave? By all means, share with your host. Introduce your host to your food, your culture, and your religion (if you insist on having one). But remember that your views are your own, and that no one should be forced to agree with them. Take an interest in your host’s culture. Speak the language. Appreciate that your host may have it’s own dress code, which may seem strange to you. All I can say is that I would certainly throw you out of my house if you showed up inappropriately dressed, and sat sullen in a corner, refusing to speak my language or eat the food I’d prepared for you.

So these are my views, love ‘em or leave ‘em. Not too far right, but by no means liberal. I’m not a neo-Nazi hate-monger. I just don’t happen to believe in a bleeding heart society of special interest groups. I think rights and freedoms should come with responsibility, so that we can continue to deserve and appreciate these rights and freedoms.

Now I just need to find new cool kids to hang out with!

A little has changed. Like I started going back to church - and then stopped again. I never did move to France. And I’m departed from my despicable spouse. So much for true love! Also, I spent 4 months living in a shelter for homeless and abused women, so I have if not a different opinion of the welfare system, then at least a revised one.

You were going to pre-order this for me, right?

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This both saddens and amuses me. I remember while I was living in Edmonton back in 1999, three houses pitched themselves off a cliff and into the North Saskatchewan River. While it is terribly sad for those involved - and a loss of pretty architecture - the absurdity of it all is undeniable.

An old-style country house described as the loveliest in a Quebec farming community was suddenly sucked into the earth, leaving search crews scrambling Tuesday to reach the family of four believed to be inside.

A spectacular ground collapse gobbled up three cars, one stretch of road and most of the home that sat by a now-disintegrated cliff overlooking the Yamaska River.

I’ve never been one to consider graffiti to be art. Mostly it’s just a nuisance. You won’t find me running through the streets of Toronto hoping for a glimpse of some vandal’s “art”.

Toronto’s Banksy frenzy apparently began on Sunday morning, when Simon Cole, the director of Toronto’s Show & Tell Gallery, received an intriguing phone call from a friend in New York. It seemed that Banksy, the enigmatic British street artist who for years has successfully kept his identity hidden, had recently visited the city and left a few gifts behind. Not long after, Cole received an email containing three images allegedly showing Banksy’s handiwork, which he posted on his gallery’s website. “I was pretty excited,” Cole said. “I’m a big fan of Banksy’s art. And it makes perfect sense. He just had a film released here publicly on Friday so I assume maybe he was in town for his premiere.” Banksy’s film, Exit Through The Gift Shop, opened in Toronto on Friday.

Banksy also apparently struck at Wm. Prager Ltd., on Adelaide Street in Toronto’s historic fashion district, a third-generation manufacturer of retail display cabinets and garment racks. When Prager staff went home Friday night, the west wall of the building was blank; they returned yesterday morning to find a life-sized stencil, in black paint, of a man in business attire with a sign around his neck, in red paint, reading: “0% interest in people.”

The point of a Pope is to speak to the masses on behalf of God. He is not to actually BE God. He is a human, as are those priests, cardinals and bishops under him (no pun intended). It has taken 2000 years, but finally, the current Pope has come out and said that his clergy are guilty of sin.

Bra-vo.

In his most thorough admission of the church’s guilt in the clerical sex abuse scandal, Pope Benedict XVI said Tuesday the greatest persecution of the institution “is born from the sins within the church,” and not from a campaign by outsiders.

The pontiff said the Catholic church has always been tormented by problems of its own making - a tendency that is being witnessed today “in a truly terrifying way.”

“The church needs to profoundly relearn penitence, accept purification, learn forgiveness but also justice,” he said.

“Forgiveness cannot substitute justice,” he said.

About bloody time. While the Church might find a century to be but a moment, the rest of us boots on the ground tend to get a little impatient.

Otters. Just because you needed it.