Stephen Taylor

Maariv via The Weekly Standard,

A short time after UNESCO, the UN’s organization for education and science, accepted the Palestinian Authority as a full member despite strong U.S. and Israeli opposition, it is now Syria’s turn to receive a present from the organization.

On Wednesday, the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad was chosen to be the Arab representative on the UNESCO committee the deals with issues relating to the implementation of human rights.

UNESCO’s decision comes after Assad’s regime managed to kill 3,500 demonstrators and arrest tens of thousands, without any due process whatsoever.

Meanwhile, Canada has told all Canadians in Syria that they should now leave. Also, DFAIT has been engaged in talks with the Syrian opposition.

Further to this, this weekend, Defense Minister Peter MacKay indicated that Canada stands by ready to assist in Syria as this country did in Libya.

Meanwhile, the RCMP has been called in to investigate a Canadian web hosting company that has been hosting Syrian ministry and media websites.

The company, iWeb in Montreal also hosts the NDP’s website.

Concordia’s student newspaper on Movember (November 2011):

The whole ‘Movember’ thing is cute and all, but can we stop and be real about it for a second? Movember is a movement to celebrate North American guys not practicing basic facial hygiene for a month in order to raise money towards saving a group of extremely privileged people—themselves.

Yes, if Movember was to raise money for people in third-world countries, for illiterate people, or homeless people, or for anything but what it is—which is privileged guys pretending they have it as hard as people with real problems—then it might come close to approaching something vaguely resembling worthwhile.

…

Furthermore, it’s worth mentioning that, as far as cancers go, prostate cancer is not much of a cancer.

Flashback to Carleton 2008:

The Carleton University Students’ Association has voted to drop a cystic fibrosis charity as the beneficiary of its annual Shinearama fundraiser, supporting a motion that argued the disease is not “inclusive” enough.

Cystic fibrosis “has been recently revealed to only affect white people, and primarily men” said the motion read Monday night to student councillors, who voted almost unanimously in favour of it.

Queen’s University, 2006 (Toronto Star):

Queen’s University, one of Canada’s most academically elite schools, admits it has allowed a “culture of whiteness” to take root that fails to welcome visible minority students and professors.

And the university vows to be more aggressive in shedding its reputation as a tony enclave of white privilege, says vice-principal Patrick Deane.