Religious Moment Of The Day

If you liked this, you'll love this.

Colour Blind Justice

I'm tending towards agreement with the Supreme Court's ruling on security certificates. It's only appropriate that there be some form of representation and advocacy on behalf of someone facing serious allegations in the justice system. The media has run away with cataclysmic 'Struck Down' headlines, but in reality, the SCC has simply invited the government to rewrite the law with the provision of some form of advocacy for the accused.

In practical terms, what this means for the men currently detained or under house arrest is simply an extension of their lengthy and very expensive fight to remain in Canada. More taxpayer dollars, paying more lawyers to write another law, that more taxpayer funded lawyers will get to challenge.... and so on. It will likely be 10, or even 15 years before these cases are resolved.

With this in mind, another case caught my eye this morning. Buried in the inside pages of the Ottawa Citizen is a story about a British man who recently pled guilty to a series of mischief charges, and who is likely to be deported very shortly. The original article is behind a subscriber wall.

Clement Jones, 39, of Wellington, Ont., will be deported March 23 after pleading guilty to three counts of mischief following a rampage last summer in which he smashed a barbecue, burned clothes and bedding, destroyed jewelry, and cut phone and electric cords in the house he shared with his wife and in-laws.

The deportation order caps a six-month ordeal that friends and supporters of Mr. Jones are calling a "travesty of justice with very serious consequences," including three weeks in jail with no access to a lawyer, since as a foreign national he was ineligible for legal aid and was unable to access his financial assets from jail.

One factor [in the deportation decision] is that Mr. Jones' visa has expired -- a fact he explains by pointing out that the police confiscated his passport during his six-month legal troubles, preventing him from renewing the visa. His passport was returned to him only this week, he said.

Both Mr. Jones and Ms. Boulay acknowledge their marriage was struggling in the months leading up to the altercation. The trigger point, Mr. Jones said, came last August, when his mother-in-law told him that Ms. Boulay had had an affair with an 18-year-old seven months earlier, while Mr. Jones was in England for his father's funeral.

So Mr. Jones is to be deported a little over six months after the original incident, having been imprisoned without access to a lawyer and denied the opportunity to apply for a visa renewal or extension. His crime is real, although finding out that your wife had been busy with an eighteen year old might anger even the most mild-mannered of us. Let's note he hurt no-one and simply destroyed marital property. On the other hand, Harkat and the others will get endless taxpayer dollars to fight to remain in Canada, for 10... 15... 20 ... who knows how many years. And they stand accused of something a little more serious than planning to destroy a barbeque.

Amnesty International and the Barbara Jackmans of the world aren't about to be there for Mr. Jones. Is this because he's truly less worthy to remain in Canada than Mohammed Harkat? Sadly no. The liberal elites can weave and twist and preach tolerance and equality, but they know and we know that Mr. Jones will be quietly and efficiently deported because he's not a refugee claimaint, he's middle-class and he's white.

Doggerel Party At The Hershey Rally

Just a few photos from the Hershey rally this morning. It was well attended but a sombre event; there were no real expectations of changing the decision, but rather just a sense of a community coming together to deal with the loss.

One thing only briefly touched on was the idea of an independent Hershey Canada - perhaps a management buyout of the plant... I wonder if anyone's working on this idea.

The Doggerel Party At Hershey

Montague Township VFD Showing Support

Sustenable Limousines

A lying Stéphane Dion, at the Ottawa Citizen Editorial Board:

We have only one car. It is an economical one. And we use public transit.

The truth about Stéphane Dion:

98 chauffeur driven trips between Ottawa and Montreal; $14,000 in expenses.

Hershey Canada Mexico

Brad Reese, grandson of the inventor of those oh-so-delicious peanut butter cups has this little tidbit on his site….In June 2006, Rick Lenny (Hershey CEO) was forced to pay part of a $1 million fine to the State of California and submit Hershey Products manufactured in Mexico for annual lead testing because Rick Lenny was caught selling Lead Tainted Mexican Candy to California's Precious Children.

Let's make sure Hershey understands that consumers won't necessarily be so keen to kiss the Mexican candy.

h/t to My Puny Brain

Hershey: Rally This Saturday; Company Confirms Smiths Falls Plant Closure

Rally: Saturday February 24th

at 10:00am

The Chocolate Shoppe

Smiths Falls

Support your town and community, and buy some chocolate.

Hershey today confirmed that the Smiths Falls factory will close, with a phased shutdown beginning later this year and some operations continuing into 2008. The company has pledged to work with government to help the workers who will lose their jobs.

While this may seem to pre-empt the need for the planned rally at Hershey this Saturday, it's still worthwhile to show up, to show the workers your support and to demonstrate to Hershey that we don't particularly want to buy Mexican chocolate.

Question Period

Liberals and Libloggers are up in arms about the question that Stephen Harper never got to ask today.

I see nothing at all wrong with Mr. Harper's question. Facts are, there is someone the RCMP wants to interview in relation to Canada's largest ever crime. That someone is a family member of a Liberal MP who is extremely close to the new Liberal leader. That new Liberal leader has chosen to block legal provisions that would allow the RCMP to force the individual to provide information.

It's possible that Dion is opposing these measures on principle - there's always a first time - but it's certainly suspicious and the question of what influence Bains' family connection had on the decision to oppose the measures is perfectly legitimate.

Methinks the Liberal party protests too much - the orchestrated and rehearsed reaction suggests they knew they had a problem here and they wanted to shout Harper down in a bid to hide it.

Art Critic Reveals Mona Lisa's Secret

The Mona Lisa, perhaps the most famous painting in the world, recently underwent a major cleaning, as a result of which details of the painting never seen by modern eyes have been revealed.

The age-old mystery of what lies behind the Mona Lisa's smile has fascinated and eluded art enthusiasts for centuries. With this space-age cleaning, however, one critic has been able to determine the true reason for the Mona Lisa's smug looking smile. Hitherto invisible, The Doggerel Party can now reveal that not only was the Mona Lisa cuddling her favorite corgi Leo as she posed, but she was also a founding member of this very Party.

For The Record : Angry Greenpeace Kid

Readers could probably guess, but just to be clear: Angry Kid asks, "Are you for my future, or against it?" We've considered carefully and the verdict is: We're definitely not in favour of Angry Kid's future. I think it's safe to say that the corgis, while normally docile animals, would like to apply a certain amount of toothily extreme prejudice to Angry Kid's future.

A Foretaste of Dion

Ontario is suffering from a sudden shortage of gasoline and other fuels today; media reports suggest Imperial Oil is hardest hit, with many Esso stations out of gasoline, including my local one. But there are also reports of supply problems at Shell and Husky. Gas prices have risen 12c to 15c a litre in the last 24 hours.

Get used to it, Ontario, because if you persist in voting Liberal there's a lot more days like today in your future.