Sept. 10, 2006: Court Challenges Program & More

The link is for the first item, only.


Give Lorne Gunter a raise

Lorne Gunter: Kill the Court Challenges Program
www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/editorialsletters
/story.html?id=b72722b5-48c9-47f7-a57b-598d7a3477e3

[....] LEAF, the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund ... Canadian Abortion Rights Action League. ... to overturn Canadian tax laws on childcare expenses and was represented by another LEAF lawyer who was paid in part by the CCP.

Ted Morton and Rainer Knopff, ... book The Charter Revolution, that the CCP ... Canadian Prisoners' Rights Network, the Charter Committee on Poverty Issues, the Working Group on Aboriginal and Treaty Rights, and the Equality Rights Committee of the Canadian Ethno-cultural Council.

The CCP was even the principal funder in 1992's Schacter case, in which CCP-paid intervenors convinced Supreme Court judges to grant themselves "reading in" powers to create new rights in Canadian law where none were approved by Parliament or the legislatures. ... special interest litigators ... principal beneficiaries ...

The CCP, with its biases and secret agendas, has no place in a pluralistic society. ....

I crave the return of the National Post 5 am delivery. Jeffrey Simpson, et al at the G & M are too left-wing / Liberal for me ... with a few exceptions.



Memory Lane: SCOC and Court Challenges Program

FHTR December 8, 2005 -- Scary SCOC Goddess Supreme aka Chief Justice McLachlin
frosthitstherhubarb.blogspot.com/2005/12
/scary-scoc-goddess-supreme.html

A truly scary person in Canadian politics CNEWS Forum, 12/05/2005

Put rights before Constitution -- Chief Justice: McLachlin tells judges to be bold 'even in the face of clearly enacted laws' [sp.-McLachlan? with url]

A truly scary person in Canadian politics casper34, (excerpts) [comments with url]

Our Chief Justice of the Supreme Court believes that she and her eight colleagues have a duty to ignore the written law passed by the people's legislators when a simple majority of them think that 25 million Canadians and their 300 representatives just aren't smart enough to get it.

Patronizing woman ... appointed, naturally, just like ex-SCOC Justice Louise Arbour, she of the intemperate statements damning Israel (she must believe the publicity the MSM puts out about her) and other Liberal appointees (Louise Frechette, late of the UN) who have changed or are trying to change our country, many of us believe for the worse.



Has there been a pattern developed in Canada of secrecy, appointed bodies with inordinate, extralegal powers?

Think of the Human Rights Commissions, NGO's with global connections, agencies, etc. -- funded by taxes, even from those who disagree with them.

Concordia students rally around author of 9/11 novel, CanWest, September 08, 2006

www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.ht
ml?id=82c31570-bbda-4d16-8230-4bcd23442aa9

[....] a group established after violent protests and a riot on Sept. 9, 2002, cancelled a planned speech by former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu ...."Nothing is made public about the risk assessment team," said Chaher Alzaman, the GSA's vice-president of services. "Their membership and decisions are kept secret. [....]

Teacher taken away in handcuffs from school -- To be charged this morning with sexual assault and sexual interference , Trevor Wilhelm, CanWest, September 07, 2006

www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.ht
ml?id=e16cac5e-364c-498e-b926-ccc28f27f3c8

[....] Antonio Raco, 49, a teacher at St. William Catholic School in Emeryville, near Windsor, will appear in court this morning to be officially charged with three counts of sexual assault and three counts of sexual interference. A source said the charges date back to the early 1990s.

This is at least the second time Mr. Raco, an elementary teacher for nearly 18 years, has been investigated by police. He was temporarily suspended last year after complaints he let his Grade 6 students look at Internet pornography. Those allegations were never proven. [....]

Certainly, no teacher should be suspect in his/her dealings with students and I cannot condone that.

However, in relation to sexual assault charges against men or women, I have read and heard warnings from teachers about girls threatening male teachers with sex assault charges in the last few years -- a new wrinkle. Children are so world-weary that they know their rights and what it would do if they want to frighten or blackmail an innocent teacher. A man could embezzle millions but his reputation wouldn't be as negatively impacted as it will be after a sex charge. Note that previous charges were not proven for the teacher mentioned above. What if he's innocent? Sexual assault charges are so elastic -- from a pat on the butt (which many women simply refuse to get too upset about and wouldn't ruin a man's career over), to horrendous criminal acts.

There is a difference between boorish, even distasteful behaviour, easily handled in other withering ways (considering what is acceptable in the society and on TV) and the other end of the spectrum. The laying of a charge of sexual assault would haunt one forever, but perhaps I'm missing something or fail to have the right attitude.

Still, I think of the lesbian teacher (NS) whose career was affected by a foolishly laid charge. I believe she sued and got a settlement, but, what has happened to her career?



And while we're at it

Women don't buy into sex -- Wholesome sells
www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.ht
ml?id=21de3df1-0b6d-45a8-928d-fdc728a2a628

GAINESVILLE, Fla. - Ads for cosmetics and clothing bore women silly when they rely on bare skin and lust, says a new Florida study that found sex doesn't sell, "wholesome" does. [....]

"You know what? Maybe sex doesn't always sell."

Women just don't get turned on--to buying--by a smouldering sweetie in a tanga nor an Angelina / botoxed pout over the breakfast oatmeal and newspaper. Marketers still don't get how boring--how inappropriate--this is. Marketers have turned to sexual suggestion everywhere we look and featured a kind of Hugh Hefner / cookie cutter beautiful conception of women ... utterly boring. Hint: Maybe a little more imperfection, size and age range? Remember, there's no pot so crooked that some lid won't fit it. At least an elegently clad woman of substance ... might trigger a shopping spree. Stop telling women they're equal to or better than men ... and then serving them huge dollops of drivel in advertising or in the lifestyles and entertainment sections. I'm probably not the only one to throw them out immediately, along with the sports fights and sports doping stories. That's not sport; that's big business.

While marketers are at it, get real -- travel sections catering to those with healthy trust or retirement incomes? How many would need this information? Wine snob choices featuring $45 bottles with hints of honeysuckle--or tar--to go with the leftovers? Gimme a break. Most of us just hope it isn't too acidic or vinegary. At under ten bucks, tops ... well, what can we expect? The world doesn't advertise for the poor, though it will play upon gullibility. Think lottery tickets, scratchies, one-armed bandits that take coins ...




Clean hands, dirty conscience, Gerald Owen, National Post, September 08, 2006
www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/issuesideas/story.ht
ml?id=33e95996-b828-441e-bee6-42398b605a65

'Out, damned spot! out, I say!" A study in the journal Science published today agrees with those words of Lady Macbeth: Conscience and cleanliness are linked. The authors of "Washing Away Your Sins: Threatened Morality and Physical Cleansing" are Chen-Bo Zhong of the University of Toronto and Katie Liljenquist of Northwestern University, both management scholars.

[....] What Zhong and Liljenquist call their "implicit manipulation" succeeded in detecting psychological associations that we do not articulate to ourselves. [....]