Don't say it!

Ethnic cleansing, forced re-settlement, less political and social rights based on religion or skin colour, laws demanding fealty to the state religion, laws restricting marriage rights between Jews and Arabs - now coerced government sterilization of a minority even if only temporary - but there's one historical comparison with these things you are never ever allowed to make no matter what.

Israel has admitted that it has been giving Ethiopian Jewish immigrants birth control injections, according to a report in Haaretz. An Israeli investigative journalist also found that a majority of the women given these shots say they were administered without their knowledge or consent.

"Wow that sounds just like..." Don't finish that sentence you filthy antisemite!

The Slaughter Continues

Three horses, three beautiful majestic animals killed in the Chuck Wagon races at Stampede.  We all knew it wasn't a matter of if, only when.

Can it still be called a tragedy if its as regular as clockwork?

Fuck your tradition.  It isn't worth a single horse's life, much less dozens.

Not Open for Debate

I resist absolutism but some things are red lines.  A woman's right to control and 'own' her own body is one of them.  Add me to the chorus of voices deeply disappointed in the tone of the Prog Blog moderators during the recent unpleasantness over the inability of some who call themselves 'progressives' to understand how monumentally offensive the suggestion that such rights could ever be open to debate is.

I had vacillated over severing ties but 'screaming banshees'? Scott?  Really?  'A trivial matter'?  Do you seriously not see the problem with these remarks and the attitudes behind them?   I couldn't even believe you had said that until I saw it with my own eyes.  Very, very disappointing.

This 'trivial matter' and your clueless response to it has cost you another blog from the list.  Please consider this my request for removal from the Progressive Bloggers Aggregate.  Those who come here from Progressive Bloggers - which I have been a member of for almost six years and do not abandon lightly - please make other arrangements.

'Screaming banshees'. Unfuckingbelievable.


UPDATE: Busily adding everyone who left Prog Blogs to my Links list who wasn't already there. I'm happy to say most of you were already were on it.  If I've missed anyone please let me know.

Mourning

I met Jack Layton in 2005 when I was in Ottawa lobbying parliament on behalf of my then union.  An infectious smile, boundless energy and deep sympathy for what my members were going through with an arrogant and intractable employer made me deeply glad he was the leader of my party.  I confess I was more excited at the time to get a parliament visitor gallery pass from Ed Broadbent and shake the hand of the NDP's old lion, but I'm so glad now that I got to meet Jack and I'm so grateful that Canada had his optimism his determination and his dedication to a better country.

Thank you so much Jack, my sympathies to his family and to all feeling the same aching sorrow I do this black morning.

UPDATE: Jack's farewell letter.  And now I'm crying again.