My OAC (Grade 13, or Ontario Academic Credit) Algebra and Geometry Teacher, Mr. Pupko, a very respectable guy who never used the word "awesome" until the day he made his remark about New York City. Al-Geo was a tough course, and I took the semestered version, even harder, Mr. Pupko who has a Masters in Math and is from New York was a hell of a tough teacher, that Grade 13 course was harder than anything I took in first year at Waterloo Math. By the time Mr. Pupko made his analysis of his home town the dozen or so of us who had not dropped out were standing around his desk going over our final grades. To be honest, that class had a more graduate school feel about it than my M. Eng. classes ever did.
I digress, I just wanted to say New York City is the greatest achievement of the human condition, a remarkable feat of opinion and steel with plenty of good art work in between.
By now we all know about the aborted terror attacks of Saturday May 1. A would be terrorist loaded an old SUV (another reason to hate SUVs) with explosives and fertilizer, parked the vehicle in Times Square and tried to flee the country.
The Globe and Mail ran a column about the owner of the vehicle being busted as he tried to flee. I wrote the following comment, which I think is worth preserving. I have modified it slightly to improve readability.
...although [Attorney General] Holder said U.S. authorities “will not rest until we have brought everyone responsible to justice,” suggesting additional suspects are being sought.
These nut cases are criminals, pure and simple. Find them, arrest them, give them the rights afforded any accused and if convicted punish them as dictated by law. Something the Obama Administration, by the above quote, clearly understands and the former [Bush] Administration had a serious issue with.
We, Canadians, and Americans, are people who live in nations of laws and we should never forget that even when the most horrible criminal acts are committed. For when we disregard our own laws we sink to the same level as these criminals. Besides, by granting the criminals some special exemption from our criminal code, we give them a power over media and the weak minded that they should never ever have.
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