Monday digest

- Loony left play of the day today goes to union leader Buzz Hargrove who, in protesting losses to Ontario's manufacturing sector, has threatened to lead his Windsor membership out on strike as soon as he can.

In Hargrove's world, this will help protect their jobs - now that makes sense.

What a fool.

- A couple of 17-year olds who later attended a barbecue fundraiser to pay for Jordan Manners' funeral have been taken into custody in connection with the slaying of the 15-year old in a Toronto high school last week.

Forget about the root causes crowd - these thugs should be tried in adult court and made an example of.

- A Canadian academic who attended an Iranian conference in Tehran this past December which was widely seen as an exercise in Holocaust denial has labelled his detractors "Islamophobes". Naturally, the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT), that paragon of tolerance, virtue and free academic inquiry, has come to his defence, crying McCarthyism.

Contrast that with the following hypothetical. Let's say there was a Canadian academic attending a conference in, say, Washington where the bulk of the speakers were generally favourable to, say, the Patriot Act. Assume then that the participating academic was essentially drummed out of his faculty, marginalized and ostracized for presenting a paper at such an event.

Do you think for one second that the CAUT would come to his or her defence?

- An Australian pub owner is trying to bar heterosexuals from entry into his establishment because he wants it to be for gays only. Good for him. Although the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal would disagree with me, it's his property, so in principle, I think he should be allowed to do whatever he wants with it, run his business as he sees fit, and have to deal with any attendant loss of income that accompanies his decisions as an entrepreneur.

- I almost forgot to mention the latest developments in progressive, democratic Venezuela, where Hugo Chavez is wringing the last bit of life out of civil society by nationalizing a private TV station that isn't on board with his socialist agenda. Next time Bill Maher, the Kos crowd or whoever starts mouthing off about the White House quashing dissent, they should look to Caracas for examples of some real bullying - but they won't.