Exactly What We Don't Need

This, from Lawrence Martin, is exactly what we don't need. Note in his praise of the once and future king that it isn't because of anything he has actually done, but more because he is "young, articulate in both languages, dashing, magnetic."

I would rather that Lawrence Martin had come out in favour of principle, diligence, trustworthiness, honour or loyalty... Certainly any one of these things is more important, more telling of the nature of a man and his worth as a politician than good looks, the gift of gab, flamboyance or enamouring qualities.

As long as the people look for the qualities Mr. Martin extols we will lurch from bad government to worse, from one duplicitous self-serving politician to the next.

I don't care about a politicians age, I care about his ideas and ideals and none of the ones we have currently have either in abundant supply or good condition.

Say No to "Fair Trade"

I've always avoided "fair trade" products, equating them with collectivism and anti-industrialists, this article proves my assumptions correct.

Capitalism and freedom remain the best and surest road to prosperity.

H/T Diana at Noodlefood

The Third World

In our backyard.

Aside from the issue of national sovereignty there is no discernible difference between the cleptocratic nature of many "First Nations" and many of the banana republics and their theiving leaders in Central Africa.

It's interesting that the people on the reserves don't get fired up over this, but hey... it's not like its their money anyway is it? They just wait and hope when its time to take their turn they can have a chance to feed deeply off the white mans guilt too.

And here I was going to try to stay positive and even festive what with x-mas being so close...

Oh well, "the best laid plans of mice and men", and all that.

Christmas

From the Ayn Rand Lexicon...

[In answer to the question of whether it is appropriate for an atheist to celebrate Christmas:]

Yes, of course. A national holiday, in this country, cannot have an exclusively religious meaning. The secular meaning of the Christmas holiday is wider than the tenets of any particular religion: it is good will toward men—a frame of mind which is not the exclusive property (though it is supposed to be part, but is a largely unobserved part) of the Christian religion.

The charming aspect of Christmas is the fact that it expresses good will in a cheerful, happy, benevolent, non-sacrificial way. One says: “Merry Christmas”—not “Weep and Repent.” And the good will is expressed in a material, earthly form—by giving presents to one’s friends, or by sending them cards in token of remembrance . . . .

The best aspect of Christmas is the aspect usually decried by the mystics: the fact that Christmas has been commercialized. The gift-buying . . . stimulates an enormous outpouring of ingenuity in the creation of products devoted to a single purpose: to give men pleasure. And the street decorations put up by department stores and other institutions—the Christmas trees, the winking lights, the glittering colors—provide the city with a spectacular display, which only “commercial greed” could afford to give us. One would have to be terribly depressed to resist the wonderful gaiety of that spectacle.

The Objectivist Calendar, Dec. 1976.

Merry Christmas one and all!

Lies, Damn Lies...

And AGW

Analysts say Russian meteorological stations cover most of the country’s territory, and that the Hadley Center had used data submitted by only 25% of such stations in its reports. Over 40% of Russian territory was not included in global-temperature calculations for some other reasons, rather than the lack of meteorological stations and observations.

The data of stations located in areas not listed in the Hadley Climate Research Unit Temperature UK (HadCRUT) survey often does not show any substantial warming in the late 20th century and the early 21st century.

The HadCRUT database includes specific stations providing incomplete data and highlighting the global-warming process, rather than stations facilitating uninterrupted observations.

On the whole, climatologists use the incomplete findings of meteorological stations far more often than those providing complete observations.

UPDATE:

It's not about global warming... Follow the money, follow the noise.

What people say is important. When the activists chant “stop green capitalism”, they honestly truly mean it. It's not that its not green, its that it is capitalism.

Then President Chavez brought the house down.

When he said the process in Copenhagen was “not democratic, it is not inclusive, but isn’t that the reality of our world, the world is really and imperial dictatorship…down with imperial dictatorships” he got a rousing round of applause.

When he said there was a “silent and terrible ghost in the room” and that ghost was called capitalism, the applause was deafening.

But then he wound up to his grand conclusion – 20 minutes after his 5 minute speaking time was supposed to have ended and after quoting everyone from Karl Marx to Jesus Christ - “our revolution seeks to help all people…socialism, the other ghost that is probably wandering around this room, that’s the way to save the planet, capitalism is the road to hell....let’s fight against capitalism and make it obey us.” He won a standing ovation.

Canada's evolution to a two party state

Canada's political left should unite if they want electoral success.

The NDP may manage to split left leaning Liberals, but I think they are more likely to court and win over the Greens, as their actual philosophies are much more closely aligned. The Greens must be frustrated in both the total lack of electoral success and the antics of Liberal Senate wannabe Elizabeth May, so I think they will be receptive to overtures.

However, the big turning point will happen post 2014, when new seats are created in the House and it becomes possible for any party to win a majority without seats in Quebec. This will marginalize the BQ, and Quebec voters will abandon the BQ in droves to keep a “seat at the table” in Canada's Parliament. Since the NDP is a Social Democratic party and the BQ is a National Socialist party, the BQ voters will move to the NDP as the national party with the closest political philosophy.

Will everyone on the political Left want to join or merge with the NDP? of course not. Given that 51% of the Greens reject it, there are still 49% of Green voters on the table (and I think the 51% is the older, more libertarian “Greens” from the founding days). After all, not 100% of the Reformers or PC party moved over to the CPC when it was founded, and stranded remnants of the Greens, BQ and LPC will probably wash up on the beach between now and 2014 depending on how smart the NDP are and how fast they work should they decide to read this post and act on it! (Anyone want to forward this to Jack Layton? Heh).

The core philosophies or ideologies of the NDP will appeal more to the Greens and BQ than anyone else, and only the NDP has the critical mass of operatives, money and political experience to actually do this. Certainly if the Progressives want to finally gain political power, this combination makes the most sense, uniting similar groups into a single national party rather than several marginal and regional parties.

This also makes the choice very clear to all Canadians on election day, a clear decision between the Classical Liberal philosophies of the CPC (however much they honour them in the breach) and the Progressive philosophies of the new Socialist Alliance Party. The post 2014 landscape will be much clearer for all.

“Unite the Left” will certainly take a while, how long did it take to go from Reform vs PC to Alliance vs PC to merger?

The BQ have no real incentive to merge today, but their voter base will see the changes in the wind after 2014, that should start the process of an NDP/BQ merger, or an NDP takover as former BQ voters move to the NDP to keep a seat at the table.

The Greens will probably come to the NDP if asked nicely (i.e. offered some real incentives), and a large fraction of their voter base will follow since the NDP offers pretty much the same ideology. This is probably something the NDP will have to initiate and manage to completion, and yes, it is something of a wild card as to how and when this can happen. Left leaning Liberals might start flocking to the Socialist Alliance Party in a sort of reversal of the former NDP players shifting to the Liberals since they will follow political power, and a rapidly growing Socialist Party will certainly be an attractive force compared to the constant bickering and searches for a new “Dear Leader” that the Liberals have been reduced to. After all, who will have a better chance at getting the keys to the treasury?

Will this happen tomorrow? No, of course not. Many Liberals are clinging to the idea that the Young Dauphin will be their “Dear Leader” who takes them back to power (and the ones who don’t are probably gathering around the Bob Rae/Power Corp faction). This fight will take some time to play out. There are five years to go before seat reapportion becomes mandatory (and the Prime Minister can upset the entire timeline by bringing in legislation creating the new seats any time between now and 2014), which I see as the trigger. Jack Layton could start the process sooner by reaching out to the Greens, and maybe to disaffected left Liberals, but the big shift won’t come until Quebec voters see that it is really possible to have a Parliamentry majority without having seats in Quebec.
Two notes here:


1. The rush from the BQ might take place right after the 2014 period, or they might need to be “convinced” of their irrelevance in one post 2014 sitting of Parliament, but the Quebec voters will indeed move.

2. “National Socialist” in its correctly political meaning: this is a Socialist party which divides the spoils on the basis of “ethnicity” rather than “class”, “gender”, “victim hood” or other non racial group identifiers.

Copen-hating

Hold the line.
Don't give in to this crap.
Don't allow them to turn Canada into their cash cow.
Stop the politicization of science.
Expose the lies.

Old PM's Don't Die...

They go to Copenhagen to say stupid shit.

Ignoring for a moment that Anthropological Global Warming is bunk, or at the very least not science, is this guy serious?

The New Horror File

(Ripped from the headlines: Dec 8, 2009)

Woman 'sentenced to death for adultery'

"Nine men are awaiting trial in eastern Spain after allegedly sentencing a woman to death for adultery in an unofficial court held under Islamic sharia law."

More compassion from the religion of peace.


Climate conflict

"The EPA's endangerment ruling could allow the Obama administration to regulate emissions without approval from lawmakers in Congress and the Senate."

Didn't Americans fight a war to win the right to have their voices heard in government?


The Real Inconvenient Truth

"A planetary law, such as China's one-child policy, is the only way to reverse the disastrous global birthrate currently, which is one million births every four days."

Why don't the nut-jobs that write these kinds of doomsday articles ever take into account the human propensity to solve problems, to innovate and to create new opportunities in response to reality? How many thousands of years have people been claiming that we are going to destroy the planet or be wiped out by our own excesses?

Hey Moon-Bat's listen closely Human beings are adaptable!!!

Meditarianism

When 50% of a province's resources are concentrated on running a single program then you no longer have a government run program, you have a program run government.

This is the situation Ontario finds itself in. According to the Frasier Institute next year the Ontario government will spend more than half its revenue on health care, the year after New Brunswick will follow suit, by 2034 four more provinces will follow suit...

With no alternative available to the citizens, the government is essentially nothing more than a support system for medical totalitarianism.

In Meditarian Canada, health care runs you!

The Charitable State.

Invariably when arguing for complete laissez-faire policies and the dismantling of the welfare state the question that the statist asks is...

"What are we to do with the people who can't fend for themselves as well as others and who need assistance in order to survive in society?"

The Objectivist response is that the individual can do whatever he wishes to do, but that he can not claim the right to force others. That he can not take his personal penchant for charity and with the loaded gun of government force others to be charitable.

There are two man-centric ideologies at work here, represented by the welfare state, and the charitable state.

The welfare state is ruled by conflicting premises.

On one hand is the claim that we men are caring creatures and that we are not "wired" or "evolved" in such a way to act as self-centered, egoists and individualists. The claim is that each and every one of us needs the community, the collective and as a result men overwhelmingly realize that the collective is greater than the sum of its parts. This reasoning is used to indicate that men should help one another, that we ought to be charitable, altruistic toward our fellow men.

The other (and contradictory) premise, which leads the welfare state to use its ill gotten force is that men are nasty, selfish, ignorant brutes who would never stop to help their fellow men and therefore must be forced to support all sorts of initiatives and progams to alleviate the suffering and hardship of those less fortunate.

Yes, the claim is that we are simultaneously "hard wired" to be altruistic and yet need to be forced to think of anyone but ourselves. This is a contradiction of epic proportions.

The Objectivist stance on the less fortunate is simple. Let each and every individual choose whether he is going to be charitable or not, depending on his preference and his ideals, his values and his own situation. There is no need to force charity.

Without government forcing the charitable to pay for every politician's pet project or well connected pressure group's personal agenda the amount of disposable income available for charity would be immense.

The benefits to the contributors would similarly be valuable to them. "Contribute to a home for the homeless? Sure! It might reduce crime, it would certainly make the city look better. Donate to the family down the street in their time of need, but of course..."

Funny isn't it that it is the selfish egoist's that are certain that individual, honest, uncoerced charity can function as required, and that the altruistic, collectivist humanists see the need to point a gun at your head and demand your money for their life.

Anti-contextual

"Every day... I can greedily, rightfully, seize every ticking moment, and never give one of them back."




"I don't live to live through anyone, ever."

On the surface these commercials are great. There is no equivocation, the sense of life is individualistic and unapologetic. They are classy and they appeal to the kind of strength of character that accepts such ideals... On the surface.

But context is important and in this case the context includes the fact that this company just received one of the most massive bailouts in history. That this is the second such bailout for this company in the last 30 years.

I don't think that these rather Objectivist appeals to individualism are an accident either. Atlas Shrugged is poised to have its best selling year to date, Tea Parties protesting the largest expansion of the welfare state in the US since the "New Deal" were held across the country.

The company is most definitely trying to appeal to that backlash, and it is just as fervently hoping that you and I and all the rest of the people out there don't notice their hypocrisy. They are counting on their audience being as anti-contextual as they are.

"Shhhhhhhhhhhh," they say... "forget the bailout... Forget the fact that your choices made us unable to survive on our own so we told the government to force you to support us. Forget that this already happened in 1979, forget that to us the ideas in these commercials are just a crass advertising ploy"... Yes, forget all that...

But then maybe that is the point, and part and parcel of their problem. As long as this company, and others like it remain anti-contextual themselves, as long as individualism, self reliance and rational self interest are only marketing gimmicks to them, then they are doomed to be moochers, looters, scavengers and thugs, taking the money they are not worthy of earning by force and denying us our freedom and choice through the barrel of a government gun.

Peace? Order?? Good Government!?!?

"In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit." Ayn Rand

This travesty stems directly from a pragmatic (and cowardly) approach to law enforcement.

The fact that a massive operation would have to be undertaken by police to secure the Brown's rights and that native bands across the country would respond with force and violence means that the Browns are left without any rights.

That is the compromise here, a festering standoff, masquerading as "peace" for the rights of an innocent family.

Disgusting.

Climate Panic

Hmmm...

Eh?

You can almost taste the panic, and it has nothing to do with Arctic Ice, Polar Bears, the eventual disappearance of the Maldives, the Amazonian rain forest, at risk species or environmental disaster.

Cap and Enslave

This is Liberals threatening to do what Liberals(socialists) do best...

Take your hard earned money and give it to people who haven't earned it. This plan makes a virtual slave of the Canadian economy and Canadian business. For the sake of what... Global warming, something that is either a natural cyclic occurrence or a big fat lie.

Cap and Trade = Wealth redistribution. The liberals want us to count on buying carbon credits from third world dictators and despots, so that we Canadians can continue to produce goods and services in order to live in the manner that we work for, which in turn makes this country the envy of every single one of those third world thugs. This is the actualization of the punishment of the good for being good. Our productivity is what is being paid for here, not global warming. AGW is a theory at best, and as pointed out elsewhere in this post it may in fact be a complete fabrication.

The fact that this plan to screw the Canadian economy (and Canadian business) comes out the same week as Climategate is astounding.

News today is that PM Harper will be going to Copenhagen for the climate summit. I hope he's there to deliver this...

Scandal, Evasion and Distraction: A Flow Chart of Modern Government.

What is it that leads governments to believe that they can hide, evade or deny their actions and the scandals they create?

Take this ridiculous example. Everyone, EVERYONE! knows there are people being tortured in Afghanistan, indeed it would be much more newsworthy to have a headline that read; "No Afghan Prisoners Have Been Tortured", and to have it be true.

The level of evasion necessary for the PMO and the government to claim that they "didn't know" is Herculean, but only slightly more so than that required by the opposition parties, the press' talking heads and us dumb voters to act surprised and outraged by it.

But this story is a mere blip on the radar. Much more important is the question why Governments think that they can hide things like this? What are they hoping to do? I believe there is a pattern here... scandal, evade, distract, (repeat if necessary).

Here's my theory...

All governments start off like the Hollywood starlet with the good girl image, and we voters are like smitten fans, happy (for the most part) with the choice we have made in the aftermath of an election.

But this electoral honeymoon is short lived. It doesn't take long before our sweetheart is rumored to be less than pure, and sure enough the sex tape emerges.

Our governments in scandal are just like that starlet. They divorce their actions from any possible repercussions. Then even when they are discovered on all fours taking it like a pro (metaphorically speaking) they deny even the possibility that they have done anything wrong.

We, voters (fans) are left either sputtering in disbelief, or cynically nodding our heads in disgust, but only for so long, only until the next political porn, a fiasco, another boondoggle, some scandal, heaven forbid there be a somethingorother-gate.

Then, not unlike the pathetic guy watching that starlet's home video, we are distracted by the next outrage, more outrageous than the last outrage.

So we go, from scandal to scandal, but rarely do we do anything other than bitch about it over coffee, because...

"did you hear...???"

Lies, Damn Lies and AGW

Ok, a show of hands...

Who's surprised?

The Bowing Chicken - a Parable

By Richard Gleaves

Once upon a time in a small white farm on the edge of the frontier, a chicken was voted leader of the barnyard. She was a particularly fine chicken: robust and cheerful, with smooth orange and white feathers. Her sharp little beak was particularly adept at pecking small seeds out of the dust, and she was well liked and admired by both the other chickens and her fellow animals.

The old dog that had previously been barnyard leader took her aside on her first day.

"Chicken," he said, "the most important job in this barnyard is to protect yer fellow animals from predators. The farmer built a nice fence around the property, but now 'n then some varmint'll get in and try to make off with one of the young 'uns. I figgered the best thing was to set a watch every night. The horse took the first shift, and the cows the second and..."

"Cluck cluck cluck!" said the chicken. "You're not the leader anymore, dog. Elections have consequences. I'll be making the decisions from now on. If varmints are attacking us, I'll know how to deal with them!"

"How, then?" asked the dog.

"Reason, of course! Just like when the pigs wanted to eat Horse's corn! I reasoned with them. And now everything is fine."

"It ain't the same! A fox ain't a pig. And a wolf ain't a horse. They don't live on a farm with reasons and rules. They're wild beasts!"

"Cluck cluck cluck" said the hen, "Go back to your doghouse and let someone smart run things!"

The dog wagged his head sorrowfully, his jowls flapping, and loped off to his little doghouse to chew an old bone.

The chicken skittered about the yard, giving orders. "Cluck cluck cluck!" she sang, "Everybody work! Make your eggs and cheese! So say I: the barnyard ruler. I do what I please!"

And the little farm obeyed.

The sun sank low on the frontier plains. The animals climbed under their straw and went to bed. The chicken flew to her roost at the tippest-top of the old white barn and tucked her head under her wing.

"Baa!" came a sudden bleat, just as the moon cleared the farmhouse roof. "Thief! Thief!"

"Cluck cluck cluck!" cried the chicken, and she flew down to the sheep corral. "Why are you bleating, you foolish sheep?"

"There! There! By the bushes! A baa-baa-burglar!!"

The chicken trundled over to the bushes and, in the moonlight, saw a raccoon attempting to climb back through the fence. His arms were full of cabbages and carrots, and he was having difficulty.

"Halt, thief!" she said "You will drop those things now!"

"Who says?" said the raccoon, his beady little eyes narrowing behind his mask.

"I, the ruler of the barnyard!". She tried to sound impressive.

"I don't wanna. I got twenty hungry babies in a log by the river. We got nothin'. Why should you guys get dese lettuces? We're starving. We need these carrots more den youse do! I'm taking dese carrots and dese lettuces."

The chicken cocked her head. "That sounds reasonable." She said. "Oh, noble raccoon. Let me apologize for the farmer's greed. We need to share with our fellows and redistribute the barnyard's bounty. My apologies for our selfishness". And then, with an impressive flourish of her wing, she bowed low before the raccoon.

Then she raised her head. The raccoon the carrots and the lettuce were gone.

"You shouldn't a' done that. Now the farmer will have to sell our eggs and milk."

The chicken turned to see the old dog frowning at her. He turned about and loped into the night.

The next day, the chicken strutted about the barnyard.

"Cluck, cluck cluck!" she sang. "Everybody work! Make your eggs and cheese! So say I: the barnyard ruler. I do what I please!"

And another day passed on the farm.

That night she was dreaming of sunflower seeds when "Neigh!" a deafening cry broke the night!

"Cluck cluck cluck!" She cried, and flew to the stable. "What has happened?" she asked the horse.

"A fox! A fox has been in the henhouse! And he's been drinking the milk!" the old nag whinnied.

She turned and saw a red-tailed fox scurrying through the window, his arms full of eggs.

"Halt, thief!" she cried "You will drop those babies now!"

"Who says?" said the fox, his tail curling into a question mark.

"I, the ruler of the barnyard!". She tried to sound dangerous. She puffed up the feathers on her chest.

"But I was ruler first!" said the fox, wiping a milk mustache from his upper lip. "This was once an open field where the foxes played in the grass. We were at one with nature. Until the evil farmer kicked us off our own lands! These eggs are reparations, until we are given the right of return!"

The chicken cocked her head. "That sounds reasonable." said the chicken. "Oh handsome fox, let me extend my apology for the suffering the evil farmer has inflicted upon you. Take our eggs and milk with my blessing!" She raised a wing and bowed low to the ground. When she raised her eyes, the Fox and the eggs were gone.

"Foolish chicken!"

She turned to see the old dog in the stable doorway.

"Now the farmer will have no lettuce, no carrots, no milk and no eggs. He will have to kill one of us and send us to market."

And the old dog loped away.

The next day was chaos on the farm. Raccoons came and went, taking everything they could. The foxes were nesting in the old hound's doghouse. Worst of all, two little piglets had been taken for slaughter.

The smell of blood hung thickly in the air. The chicken perched high on a fence post, and called an impromptu press conference.

"Cluck cluck cluck!" she sang. "Everything is bad! Work hard just the same! I inherited this mess. So the dog is to blame!"

The animals mobbed the old hound, picking him up and carrying him away.

"You're making a mistake!" He barked. "There's blood in the air! Something will smell it! Something bad will come tonight!"

The animals heaved and– with a yip!– they threw the dog over the fence. He was never to return.

And a crimson sunset descended on the tiny farm.

In her perch high above, the pompous little chicken tried to sleep. She thought about the warning of the old dog. Was she being foolish? Should she put a watch on the farm? Was there really a danger? She couldn't imagine how the world could be all that dangerous. She had lived all her life in a neat little barnyard. She'd been pampered and spoiled. She'd never faced hardship or battle. The dog and horse and the cow and the other strong animals were just dumb brutes. They chose force when reason was obviously the better alternative.

She wondered now, might the world be wild after all- somewhere beyond the furrowed fields and neat little hogpens- a wild, wild world?

She put her head under her wing and drifted to sleep.

Sometime after midnight, cries erupted all around the barnyard! Animals were bleating and running, scurrying and leaping! They honked and snorted and mooed!

"Wolves!" they cried! "Wolves!"

The little chicken didn't know what to do. She fluttered down, jumping from place to place, wings over her eyes. She caught a glimpse of grey fur, saw hulking forms pouncing on defenseless creatures. She saw a sheep stamping her hooves in terror as she was devoured.

The night was full of growls.

"Cluck cluck cluck!" she dithered. "Oh dear, oh dear!" she hid in an overturned barrel, peeking out through the slats. She trembled as a long grey snout appeared at the opening, and feral eyes glinted in the moonlight. She was about to be eaten!

Then she heard a moo from above and she saw a hoof flash out- knocking the wolf aside! Through slats in the barrel she saw cows and horses forming a defensive ring around the other animals. She heard the blast of the farmer's shotgun.

She heard the voice of the old dog!

"They're on the run! Everybody stick together. Watch the young 'uns! Those wolves can't get us now! No thanks to that stupid, stupid chicken!"

Her feathers on end, she scrambled out of the barrel and perched on top.

"This isn't MY fault!" She cried. "The dog has brought the wolves upon us! He is staging a coup!"

"A coop?" asked the dog.

"A coup! A rebellion. A mutiny! The dog is a radical extremist! This is a plot to take over our barnyard! You– You just don't like chickens!"

"This has nothin' to do with likin' chickens! This is yer fault! Don't you get it? You stupid piece of unplucked poultry! You can't negotiate with wild things!"

"You can so!" Said the chicken. "Watch!" and she fluttered over the fence and out of the barnyard.

As she landed on the other side, the chicken stopped and looked around. She'd never been off the farm before! The world outside was dark, gloomy. The moon shone down on tangled weeds and muddy ditches, on thorny brambles and gnarled branches that reached down as if to snatch her away. Yellow eyes peered from the dark.

"Cluck cluck cluck!" she murmured to herself. She didn't like the world one bit!

Then the Great Wolf appeared.

He padded from the shadows towards her, stopping a foot away. He was muscular, immense, grey, scarred and ragged. She could feel his hot breath.

The chicken cocked her head.

He looked reasonable.

"Oh, noble wolf!" she said, ignoring his rows of teeth. "I am here to apologize for offending you. Too long has the farm shut out your great people. Too long have we been selfish and stubborn– never seeing the wolf's side of things! Let us open a dialog in hopes of reaching a mutual agreement to mutual interest. All animals are brothers and it is my greatest wish that we live together in peace and friendship!"

And, with a flourish of her wing, she bowed low before the Great Wolf.

The last thing the chicken ever knew was the sensation of teeth on the back of her neck...

© Richard Gleaves 2009-11-17

Many thanks to Richard for allowing me repost this...

America Emasculated.

Can you pick out the simpering toady in these pictures...

Canada's transformation into a Republic

An American Republic at that.

Canada will probably become a Republic sometime in the mid century through a combination of demographic and economic forces.

Short version of the argument: while Canada erodes with a very sub replacement birthrate (aprox 1.4 children per couple), the United States is continuing to expand, with the population expected to be between 500 and 550 million. At the same time, Canada will be suffering acute labour shortages due to the demographic "bust" of the 2020's.

Large numbers of Americans can be expected to immigrate to Canada seeking the higher pay employers will be forced to offer to get workers, and they will also import their values. As they become more numerous and politically active, they will become the driving force behind many social and institutional changes in Canada.

Remember too that it is the "Red State" Americans who have large families, not "Blue State" Americans, and the generations leading up to 2040 will have seen Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid go bankrupt (along with many US municipalities and even some States like California, Michigan and New York). Come to think of it, most Canadians will be around to see American entitlement programs go bust (some estimates put the entitlement programs into net deficit as soon as 2016), so there will be at least two generations of Americans who will not be disposed towards unsustainable entitlements, and certainly will work hard to see these things do not happen in their new home.

Canadians will also have witnessed their own social programs like "Public Health Care", CPP and OAS go bust as well in the late 2020's as Boomers drawing on taxpayer funded benefits begin to outnumber and overwhelm the actual number of taxpayers. A large segment of Canadian voters will also have become adverse to socialist ideology, given they were put through severe hardship to pay for these Ponzi schemes, combined with a generation of young, politically active American immigrants with similar life experience should provide a large voter base to carry out political change.

This should be a topic that everyone should consider regardless of political orientation; how will you prepare yourself and your family and loved ones for the coming demographic changes, and what will you do to ensure the change is positive and peaceful for most Canadians?

Doomed to Repeat it...

*

"With interest rates at zero, monetary engines humming as never before, and a self-proclaimed Keynesian government, we are back again embracing the brave new era of government-sponsored prosperity and debt. And, more than ever, the system is piling uncertainties on top of uncertainties, turning an otherwise resilient economy into a brittle one."

Acting Surprised

Why is this a surprise?

We have built a system where we expect our politicians to hand out money for everything from road construction to health care, where the electorate's call to action sounds more like the old refrain "what have you done for me lately" and then suddenly when our politicians spend the money we give them to buy our votes like we asked them to during their campaigns we claim it is violating some sacred trust?

What hypocrites we are.

This problem is easily solved though, limit government to one task, the protection of inalienable rights; life, liberty and property.

Take away the power of politicians, the ability to engage in influence peddling, to stifle business and to legislate on a whim. Take away the power of the politician to declare illegality for anything other than the initiation of force or fraud and remove their ability to manipulate the market in any way shape of form.

But don't stop there, you can't stop there...

Educate the electorate to the point where it consistently and rightly realizes, that the power to tax is the power to enslave. So that they look to business to provide solutions not the tyrannical hand of government. Where they realize the truth in the old adage that to be free themselves they must allow others to be free, where the only thing rightly viewed as anyones else's business is the initiation of force or fraud upon another human being.

Until this happens, all of you out there bitching about some peoples ability to be more equal than others, the signatures on cheques, the crass politicization of economic panic, the buyouts and bailouts should just stop acting surprised, because the system is working exactly the way you designed it to work.

Resist...

Thanks to avgleandt

That's it.

I'm going to save the planet.

I'm going to train my dog to eat environmentalists...

They Have No Right(s)

It ought to be called "The Canadian Charter of Desires and Permissions" because Rights and Freedoms don't enter into the equation...

"The court acknowledges that the law violates the rights of parents and children. The court acknowledges that if the law is read as written any attempts to achieve the same result as the offending law will violate those same rights. The court says, we won’t read the law that way next time if you change the wording to something nicer. "

read the whole thing

No, Really? Seriously?!?

*

"She criticized the media's portrait of Mexico as nothing more than a society of illegal migration, drugs and violence, and she said her fellow citizens found it amazing that Mexican asylum seekers in Canada were claiming their government couldn't protect them from the drug wars and corrupt and abusive security forces."

I know that as a politician she is required to paint a somewhat skewed picture of her nation but seriously, Mexico is currently embroiled in an all out Drug war with more than 8,463 dead and counting. Hell, the war even has its own Wiki page.

*

"In five minutes, without shooting a bullet, a 20-man armed commando unit burst into a prison in the Mexican state of Zacatecas and freed 53 prisoners – all of them connected with the Gulf Cartel. The lightning speed of the operation and the crisp Federal Police uniforms worn by the gunmen was the work of the Zetas, the Gulf Cartel’s armed wing."

With all due respect to Senator Rosario Green Macias, her humiliation is a direct result of her own country's inability to stem both the flow of drugs and the flow of people away from the violence and the drugs.

Senator, don't look at Canada and claim that relations will get better with a new Prime Minister, look to Mexico and fix the problems there.

Watch This

There's a lot of noise about the PM not watching Canadian news...

Three points.
1. Do people honestly believe that anything that the PM needs to know isn't briefed to him by people a lot more in the know than the Canadian press?
2. Perhaps the Canadian media should be examining just how poorly they deliver their product when it's not even watched by the leader of the country.
3. With Canadian news as partisan as it is (on both sides) do you really blame the PM for wanting a somewhat removed perspective on it?

Right for all the Wrong reasons

Bob Hepburn is right for all the wrong reasons.

Everything "Lord" Moran said about Canadians seems to me to be pretty close to the mark. We tend to overly praise even just the competent members of our society, and should someone reach critical acclaim outside of Canada, well Lord Moran's quip about the Order of Canada is not far from the mark.

Similarly Mr Hepburn is not wrong in asserting that it is high time that Canada cut the umbilical and ended the sham of constitutional monarchy. The Queen and her representative, the Governor General are a waste of time and money. We do not need a royal marionette or even the puppeteer herself to give the actions of our government and its elected officials sanction.

What do you suppose would be the response by Canada and Canadians if the GG on the recommendation of the Queen, or the Queen herself decided to refuse to sign some piece of legislation into law?

If you guessed the end of the monarchy in Canada you would be right.

This begs the question that if the Queen/GG would never contemplate disallowing a Canadian law or a proclamation from Canada's parliament what use are they anyway?

Was Lord Moran being a pompous arrogant wind-bag when he wrote that letter all those years ago? Most likely, but Mr. Hepburn's pulverized feelings aside, the Stars writer hasn't done a very good job of proving the Brit wrong when his article stands on the premise of digging for hurt feelings from a 25 year old letter.

The Nature of Governments

We’ve heard it all before… “Government is a necessary evil.” Well, that is a lie, and a dangerous lie at that.

By implication the statement seems to say that if we dumb humans could only get it right we could exist in a society free of government. This is the anarchist dream, but even they recognize the need for the protection of rights, for national and personal security. However, their solution is not governmental but private. They say that a society let a man hire a company to protect his rights that he could be safe, that he would be protected.

Of course that all falls disastrously apart when Mr. Jones and Mr. Smith each having hired different security forces both maintain their rights have been violated and each attempts to have the other arrested for the transgression. Protection Company “A” plus Protection Company “B” minus the stability of a single government equals bloodbath.

Alternatively such anarchy panders to the far too human tendency toward the principal that might makes right and gangs, private armies and warlords turn the anarchist utopia into a Hobbesian life, cruel, brutish and short.

On the other side of the coin is the belief that Government, (still as a necessary evil) is what makes a society, that it is an end in itself, that it is more important than any one man. The socialist and communist while promising that someday the state will “whither away” still believe in it indeed they make it the causus beli of their society.

In following the false notion of collective rights, they come to believe that in order to provide what is “good” to “all” it is necessary to destroy the concept and meaning of the individual. “You” as an entity do not exist. You are a cog in the wheel, insignificant when measured against the needs of others. What others? The others. What need? Their need. Who is the “all” that they are working so hard for? Why it’s anyone but you, the individual.

So where does this leave us? Well, to be honest, metaphysically it leaves us way, way back before government and politics and society ever enter into the picture, but that is a subject for another day so let me just make a “simple” assertions here.

The previous two extremes attempted, or claimed to protect mans rights. What essential right is it that the Anarchist and the Socialist seek to protect? Mans right to life.

Life is the right from which all other rights spring, be they true rights like liberty and property or false printing press rights like the right to healthcare or to a job.

Can one sell a right, or hire it out? Certainly not.

Who has a life worthy of the term right? Society, a nation, some group, government or gang? No.

Only an individual can possess rights and no individual can ever hold his rights higher than the rights of another. And it is that principle that brings us to the nature, purpose and necessity of government.

Government is necessary to protect the rights of individuals, to ensure that their rights are held on par with all other individuals. No mans position, strength, wealth, need or wants can ever place his rights above the rights of another man. That assurance is the sole function of government, it is not evil, it is just and proper and rational.

How a government approaches the defence of individual rights defines its nature. The anarchist disallows government as the arbiter of disputes and consequently the protector of rights, so rights are destroyed.

The socialist perverts the concept of rights and applies it to some nameless, faceless undefined collective making slaves of all.

The welfare statist attempts to make rights out of needs consequentially following the socialists path to hell.

And finally religionists of whatever political persuasion subverts mans right to live his own life for the commandments of some supernatural fairy tale and the promise of something better when he is dead..

So the next time you hear someone say that government is a necessary evil ask him to name which evil he prefers more, slavery, servitude or death.

Ironic isn't it

One of the charges made against the Objectivist, and Objectivism by both the socialists and the religious conservative right is that the philosophy is elitist.

This assumption is made through superficial readings of Ayn Rands books, where no deeper meaning is never sought out, and the mind is sequestered from the possibility of contamination by contradictory principals. In reading Atlas Shrugged they ignore the characters like Eddy Willers, Sheryl Gallant, the young brakeman. In The Fountainhead "Mike" the construction worker is forgotten. So because of their selective understanding, intellectual dishonesty and evasion they label Objectivism elitist. But is it?

Objectivism holds that anyone can strive for perfection in anything they do. That every man has it within his own being and his own reasons for being to be happy on his own terms, to be successful on his own terms, to be his own ideal.

The socialist on the other hand believes that some men will never amount to anything unless those who are better off (smarter, richer, healthier) give him, or more rightly force others to give him that which he could surely never achieve on his own.

The right wing fundamentalist believes that some men need to be shown the error of their ways, even that they must be forced toward "the good" (as defined in their scripture) through laws and prohibitions so that they might be able to reach the lofty heights of heaven.

Which one of these philosophies was the one labelled as elitist?

Yup, Objectivism, the philosophy of man and the only one of the three that says anyone can achieve, anyone can be moral and anyone can be happy by being the best he can be, by living his life for himself.

Ironic isn't it. The socialists and the right wing mystics tell you you're not good enough to achieve "it" on your own, but it is Objectivism, that tells you, you can and are, that gets labelled as being elitist

Getting away from it all; why we really need to find Galt's Gulch

The real problem is we are constrained. No matter where you go, you will always be in the reach of others, most of who are determined to make sure you pay your fair share of their entitlements. The siren call of living off the means of others continues to be the number one enemy of freedom, and indeed, there is little that can be done, since it is a rational choice for an individual to attempt to shift their burdens onto someone else.  It is also rational to attempt to dominate others by force if you wish to take their wealth for yourself; Socialism and Warlords are really just different facets of the same thing.

Personal "Galt's Gulches" are quite possible, and I have blogged on this subject in the past. A virtual "New Atlantis" based on Internet connectivity may also be possible, especially if the medium of exchange is something mutually agreed upon by the members (trading useful information and barter may not be as efficient as cash, but is certainly less accessible to the agents of the State).

No, the solution must involve escaping entirely from the clutches of the State, but also in leaving a beacon for like-minded people to follow. In the present day and age, we have a destination: space.

Since the 1980’s, a large and growing body of science and literature has been devoted to the problems of settling in the environment of outer space. Much of this is actually recycled, amazingly, thinkers like Konstantin Tsiolkovsky were writing on the subject as early as 1903. Most of the ideas have simply been refined with the addition of a century of scientific and technological development. Today we are on the threshold of actually achieving inexpensive spaceflight. Private companies like “Virgin Galactic” have working prototypes of commercial spacecraft that can bring people to the edge of space, and developments like IEC Fusion (being developed by EMC2 Energy) will bring cheap energy which can be harnessed for propulsion beyond Earth Orbit.

So, what's the problem? A society with access to cheap energy (which can be generated in theory by low cost devices that determined individuals or small companies can produce) would seem to be the definition of an Earthly paradise. The real problem is that while the powers of the individual could be increased, the power of the State could increase overwhelmingly. As well, vast increases in available luxury and wealth would be used to bribe the "sheeple" and keep them quiet in the face of an ever increasing "soft tyranny". 

New horizons are needed to draw the best out of people, and inspire those who by accident or design are unable to follow. The end of the middle ages in Europe came not when the New World was discovered (for the nth time) but when it was publicized: (Via Instapundit)

HAPPY COLUMBUS DAY: Many in the West will demonstrate their fierce originality and intellectual independence today by condemning Christopher Columbus using the same shopworn cliches they used last year. For those of a different bent, I recommend Samuel Eliot Morison’s Admiral of the Ocean Sea : A Life of Christopher Columbus, which takes a somewhat different position. Here’s an excerpt:

At the end of 1492 most men in Western Europe felt exceedingly gloomy about the future. Christian civilization appeared to be shrinking in area and dividing into hostile units as its sphere contracted. For over a century there had been no important advance in natural science and registration in the universities dwindled as the instruction they offered became increasingly jejune and lifeless. Institutions were decaying, well-meaning people were growing cynical or desperate, and many intelligent men, for want of something better to do, were endeavoring to escape the present through studying the pagan past. . . .

Yet, even as the chroniclers of Nuremberg were correcting their proofs from Koberger’s press, a Spanish caravel named Nina scudded before a winter gale into Lisbon with news of a discovery that was to give old Europe another chance. In a few years we find the mental picture completely changed. Strong monarchs are stamping out privy conspiracy and rebellion; the Church, purged and chastened by the Protestant Reformation, puts her house in order; new ideas flare up throughout Italy, France, Germany and the northern nations; faith in God revives and the human spirit is renewed. The change is complete and startling: “A new envisagement of the world has begun, and men are no longer sighing after the imaginary golden age that lay in the distant past, but speculating as to the golden age that might possibly lie in the oncoming future.”

Christopher Columbus belonged to an age that was past, yet he became the sign and symbol of this new age of hope, glory and accomplishment. His medieval faith impelled him to a modern solution: Expansion.

A community of people who are fully engaged in bringing new worlds to life will certainly develop a much different view of life and society than indolent masses who are being kept like fattened sheep in a pen. Where every hand at the wheel is important, the habits of hard work, thrift and planning become paramount, much like frontier society during the colonization of North America between the 1500’s and the closing of the frontier in the 1870’s. Even today, much of the difference between cultural conservatives and liberals can be traced to the environment: conservatives tend to live in small towns and rural environments, while liberals tend to live in cities. Far less surplus wealth exists in the countryside to feed populations of moochers, and those who do live that lifestyle often do so at the expense of family and friends who agree to provide support.

There are fewer extremes of wealth as well in such environments, allowing people to deal with each other as equals, rather than as masters and servants. While ideas like an “elect” might never die out, the ability to constantly expand to new environments and harvest new resources will provide an endless counterbalance:

Morison’s book is superb, and I recommend it highly as an antidote to the simplistic anti-occidental prejudice of today — which, as Jim Bennett has noted, has roots that might surprise its proponents:

This is primarily an effect of the Calvinist Puritan roots of American progressivism. Just as Calvinists believed in the centrality of the depravity of man, with the exception of a minuscule contingent of the Elect of God, their secularized descendants believe in the depravity and cursedness of Western civilization, with their own enlightened selves in the role of the Elect.

Boo Fricken Hoo...

Yeah, how dare we demonize an ideology that is responsible for nothing less than the systematic slaughter of 30 to 50 million people in one single country, not to mention all the rest of the purges carried out in its name in the last 92 years.

*Sorry for the redundancy in the Tags on this post...

For What?

His Obamaness, lord of hope and change, the One has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of...

Well I don't know what it is in recognition of. Nominations were closed only 11 days after he took office. Eleven days is barely enough time to evaluate a newly purchased car much less a newly established president. I've had direct supervisors that it took me longer to assess.

The Nobel Peace prize has just achieved Cracker-Jack Box status

And on that note, Mr. Nobel must be rolling over in his grave.

*As one friend put it. The Prize has been awarded to three other sitting presidents but this is the first time it has been awarded just for sitting.

Yet another one liner... "Atlas Shrugged isn't coming true The Onion is." (H/T Ryan)

Proper Product Testing

"The windscreen is heated, but not bulletproof..."

Taught to Think

I'm wondering how many of the people who visit here were taught how to think in school?

H/T Dr. Hurd

Pittsburg Police Create Riot At G20

WTF?

I'm Right... You're Wrong."

It seems it is unusual these days to hold onto any belief as rigid as that statement and doing so can lead to one being labelled rigid, inflexible, dogmatic… and my personal favourite, extreme.

But let me clarify something here. When I speak of right and wrong in this manner I am not commenting on a societal norm, or a personal choice. I am not trying to apply my personal prejudice to a situation and write off my bias, feelings or upbringing as falling within or defining what is right or wrong.

In order for such a statement to be made (and to be worthy of consideration) the person making it must have reduced the question of right and wrong to its base. Axiomatic to that question is the principal of initiation of force.

The question of the application of force is a moral one. Ayn Rand said “Force and mind are opposites; morality ends where a gun begins.” The issue and the question don’t get any clearer than that.

So where does that lead us? Well, to certainty.

Here is an example…

Circumcision is wrong.

It is wrong not on religious grounds or feelings or even the necessity of the act itself but because it is procedure performed on infants who are neither mature enough to decide nor are they given the opportunity to decide whether to have the operation performed. It is wrong because of the force.

“But…” the argument begins “it is right in certain cultures.”

Really? Would it be “right” to hack off an infant’s left hand if that somehow had evolved as a cultural norm? How about a forefinger at the age of 6 months. Maybe just the ceremonial removal of all a baby’s fingernails?

Would it be right for a man to keep slaves if that was claimed as a historical or cultural norm? How about cannibalism or any of a host of other barbaric practices?

No.

Circumcision is wrong. It is just as wrong as its less acceptable (in western culture) cousin, female genital circumcision (mutilation). And it is wrong for exactly the same reason… The application of force against children or babies that are too young and/or not permitted to decide what happens to their bodies on their own.

Right and wrong are simple concepts, easily divisible, easily discernible. Applied with the proper principal it is quite simple and quite correct to say…

"I'm right, you're wrong."

Ghosts of Liberals Past

This has me wishing that the end of this repackaged, uninspiring, sophomoric, oh-so-70's exercise in Trudeausocialism, turned policy nightmare would be Ludwig von Mises kicking Ignatieff's ass all the way back to Harvard.

Aside from that daydream... this article also exposes that revisionism is alive and well in the Liberal camp.

When this economic downturn started PM Harper attempted to stick to his conservative roots and to not play Keynesian Russian Roulette with taxpayer funded bullets. However, Jack Layton almost screaming in the House of Commons that "something had to be done for the workers", accompanied by much Liberal gnashing of teeth and beating of breasts demanding that "something be done for the economy" was enough to ignite the PM's pragmatic (and wholly political) survival instinct... Hence the hole being dug by politicians today, to be filled with taxpayer money tomorrow.

Truth be known that I agree with Mr. Ignatieff, the deficit is too high and the Conservatives are spending all too wildly. But Iggy's assumption that his own spending plan will not create such a deficit, and further that the money he is planning on spending will actually (miraculously) shrink the deficit is the kind of mental gymnastics that leads one to think that he can have his cake and eat it too.

Kelly McParland at the National Post takes the time to kick Ignatieff for both Ludwig and I...

How can they be hard-hearted tightwads and loose-spending wastrels at the same time? They're pouring money into the economy, which is bad. The Liberals would spend more, which is good. Interventionist government is good. But interventionist government by Tories is bad. We have to reduce protectionism. But anyone tries to buy a Canadian company and we'll drag them in front of a review board.

I don't get this Ignatieff guy. I can't figure out what he believes. Because I don't think he knows.

Read the whole thing.

Cleaning out my Philosophical Closet.

I have just gone through my bookmarks and deleted a quite popular conservative blog that I have followed for a number of years. as a matter of fact I think this was the first blog I ever began following and reading regularly. No, I'm not going to tell you which blog, this post isn't about that.

I deleted it because I finally saw (or acknowledged) it was racist. Now I'm not talking white supremacist, KKK/Black Panther, Neo-Nazi racist but the more insidious brand of racism, the kind that gets thrown into a conversation and is rarely called a spade as it were.

Its perpetrated by that sensible sounding guy that claims "I'm not talking about culture and I'm not racist." immediately after making a statement about "us letting other types of people into your country" and complaining that "they brought over their religion" and how now "it is all one big mess, because we were to nice and let them come into our country. Now they want everything and anything." While simultaneously blanking out the fact that that very desire (to live as one wishes), is what led people to populate North America in the first place.

It's the person that uses statistics, pointing out that "3.2 per cent of Spain's population was foreign-born in 1998. In 2007 it was 13.4 per cent. Europe's Muslim population has more than doubled in the past 30 years and will have doubled again by 2015. In Brussels, the top seven baby boys' names recently were Mohamed, Adam, Rayan, Ayoub, Mehdi, Amine and Hamza." and drawing a correlation between that fact and some nebulous apocalyptic future if the trend continues.

Incidentally these kinds of statistics pop up quite a bit in the media, reported as floating abstractions which offer nothing of substance to the point being made, and are rarely if ever connected, as they should be, to the vilest form of collectivism there is.

Now I'm no ostrich. I'm not burying my head in the sand and claiming that all cultures deserve the same respect. There is no reason to respect the systemic sexism or the religious violence advocated by some extreme forms of Islam because that is someone's "culture" any more that there is a valid claim that cannibalism should be accepted because the practice was connected to tribal custom in the Amazonian jungle.

On the whole race and culture denote nothing, it is an indication of nothing about the individual as an individual. You can no more decide the beliefs of a man based on his race or culture any more than you can determine the flavour of a wine from the shape and colour of the bottle.

Hippocrates Shrugged

In Obama's America, health care manages you...

45 percent of American physicians “would consider leaving their practice or taking an early retirement”

In the event that this 45% of doctors follow through, that would leave the rest not in a profession but in virtual slavery.

EDIT
An excellent post from F.I.R.M. (Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine) to add fuel to your intellectual fire.

Genes Of Evil...

''The American relatives have agreed not to have children to extinguish the saga of Hitler and stop living in fear, but have promised to publish a book before they die,'' said Mulders.

This is the sort of nonsense regurgitated by people who believe that your genetic code is the be all and end all of you, the individual. This is the ugly ignorant hand of determinism reaching out from beyond the grave to destroy what could be, or could have been vital productive lives of people who have themselves never done wrong.

Its a psychological, physiological and existential impossibility that being related to one of the most evil men in history means that you will somehow by the miracle of genetics pass that "sin" on to an offspring.

An equivalent lunacy would be to say that existing relatives of the Donner Party should never be allowed to cook at the campsite.

Ignatieff Begins With I

...and he is the I in team.

Metaphysical Value-Judgments

So much of what I post here is tinged with anger, incredulity and despair that I must seem to be a bitter sort, but that just isn't so.

Never the less its useful, cathartic and refreshing to show other sides of your self, even to yourself every now and then. So with that in mind I'd like to introduce you to one of my favorite artists Jack Vettriano.

Now I'm no art critic, but like the man says... I know what I like. For me the art deco coolness of Mr. Vettriano's work speaks of a time of limitless possibilities. It is simple, clean, not overly ornate and unabashedly sensual, sexual and occasionally erotic.

In Thoughts of You - Jack Vettriano

Don't Ever Forget

*

What if Milton Friedman was addressing America's schoolchildren?

Although a President making an address to schoolchildren should not seem controversial, President Barack Obama has managed to arouse a great deal of resistance and opposition to his planned address.

The controversy isn't so much about the remarks of the address (which, being pitched to children, is relatively mild and uncontroversial in of itself), but the larger context of how the administration operates in general and the crude and ill conceived "learning package" that was planned to go with the speech, a package for America's schoolchildren which has all the hallmarks of indoctrination.

Perhaps it would be better if schoolchildren everywhere were to hear from notables like Milton Friedman. I pulled this gem from "Dr Helen":

I would rather think that the words of Milton Friedman from his book Capitalism and Freedom make more sense:

"The paternalistic 'what your country can do for you' implies that government is the patron, the citizen the ward, a view that is at odds with the free man's belief in his own responsibility for his own destiny. The organismic, 'what you can do for your country' implies that government is the master or the deity, the citizen, the servant or the votary. To the free man, the country is the collection of individuals who compose it, not something over and above them. He is proud of a common heritage and loyal to common traditions. But he regards government as a means, an instrumentality, neither a grantor of favors, and gifts, nor a master or god to be blindly worshipped and served.

Now there is a lesson we can all get behind

To Vote... Yet Not To Vote

The Liberal's say they are going to "pull the plug" on the Conservatives minority government (they really, really, really, really, really mean it this time).

Now in most places on the planet when an election is held there are only a couple of reasons for doing so. Either the term of the sitting government is over and by law there has to be an election, or in a multi-party democracy a sitting minority government looses the support of the parliament (or what-have-you) over some real or politically important (imagined) issue.

My question is this... What is the issue (I'll even accept a "politically important" one at this point)? What is the reason that the Liberals have decided suddenly to stop supporting the Conservatives as they have done for the last 303 days? What is the point of spending another $300,000,000 to hold an election that no one outside of the Liberal and NDP spin factories even want?

What would the Liberals do differently? The Conservatives are already governing like Liberals anyway.

The Conservatives have completely divorced themselves from any sort of fiscal responsibility, they have shunned their small government conservative ideals, and they have bent over backwards to pay their way into the hearts and minds of anyone and everyone who they think might even remotely have a chance of voting for them. Sounds just like the Liberals to me.

PM Harper and his boys and girls have behaved like nothing more than Liberal dopplegangers so why should we Canadians have our time and our money wasted on a vote to replace one conjoined twin with the other?

What if they held an election and nobody showed up to vote? What if we were able to get less than 50% of the people of this country to show up for that 5 minutes of "civic duty"? Or better yet what if the usual number of people showed up but didn't mark their ballots, or wrote a personal note to government instead of choosing one empty suit over another.

You could write something small on a ballot, something like "Get to work..." or "Stop stealing from me..."

Politicians often make comments about elections sending them a "message from the voters" well lets send them all a message to smarten the %&@# up and stop wasting our time and money.

Update: Obama's Brownshirts Want Your Information

Seems the Obama administration is going to do a bunch of data mining from popular social networking sites. This initiative has an Orwellian feel to it. As one friend pointed out on FB, it bodes ill for both freedom of speech and freedom of association.

This, coupled with the other recent activities of America's first Socialist Government has some of our rights respecting southern cousins seeing Red, White and Blue.

H/T: Kelly

Barack Hussein Obama: Slightly left of Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev

The only thing missing from this are the "Comrade" and "Dear Leader" honorariums.

Honduras Update: "We Are Not Afraid..."

Roberto Micheletti spells it out for the OAS

"We are not afraid of an embargo by anybody.

"The country can carry on firmly and calmly without your support and that of other nations," he said after a meeting with the delegation.

"Nobody is coming here to impose anything on us, unless troops come from somewhere else and force us."

It amazes me that in light of Central Americas history of despotism, dictatorship and thuggery the world is now seeking to force Honduras to destroy its own constitution and return to that Banana Republic model.

Tax Haven

This just makes me want to move to Costa Rica.

No Tax for Pan-Am

1.4 billion

Bread and Circuses, that's what it was called back during the fall of the Roman Empire. The idea at the time was that the political leadership of the Empire could distract the citizenry, and make them to forget the realities of their day-to-day lives by staging elaborate games and spectacles in the colleseum.

Fast forward 2000 years... Now, in the middle of a recession, when people in the manufacturing heartland of Ontario (of which Hamilton is a part) are suffering from lay offs and plant closures all three arms of the government, municipal, provincial and federal, led by Dalton "Nero" McGinty think it's a good time to take more money from taxpaers to fund a sporting event?

Ridiculous!

No Tax For PanAm...

Huh?

On a day where this picture is captured on an online news aggregator...








I'm inclined to think The Onion has hit the nail on the head with this piece.



I used a previous post to lambaste politicians for their pragmatism but to be fair the average voter needs to learn how to stand for something unequivocally if we are ever going to do more than chase our electoral tails during and between elections...

Don’t Call It Moral.

The Scottish Judge who released Terrorist bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi the killer of 270 people over Lockerbie Scotland said in an interview with CNN that;

“Equally, we have values that we seek to live by, even if those who perpetrate crimes against us have not respected us or shown any compassion. Here is a dying man. He didn't show compassion to the victims, American or Scottish. That does not mean that we should lower ourselves, debase ourselves, or abandon our values.

He was justly convicted, but we're allowing him some mercy to return home to die.”

This statement by the judge implies the application of a moral standard, but morals are defined as; of, pertaining to, or concerned with the principles or rules of right conduct or the distinction between right and wrong;

The last part is central to my point. Under Christian religious morality one should always find it in their heart to forgive a transgressor, no matter what it is that they have done wrong. This is the central tenant of Christian “morality”.

The problem is that it isn’t moral; it is specifically and implicitly amoral. It discards all concept of right and wrong and replaces it with the vilest abdication of thought imaginable. Christianity tries to make the devout follower indifferent to questions of right or wrong and wholly dependent and subservient to some mystical whim which is itself contradicted in Christian religious writings (including anecdotal evidence of god’s actions).

So here is your choice. You can believe in the Christian morality and try to walk your religious tightrope which lists a multitude of things as evil but also states that you should forgive any transgression no matter how vile, or you can apply the morality encapsulated in the sentence “In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit.”

Quickly… Choose. Choose to compromise on any and all moral decisions, to abandon any principal based on the whim of a deity who himself fails to apply what he teaches, or you can take the hard line, the resolute stance to believe in right and wrong regardless of circumstance, immovable by whim, immutable by the mystic babbling of an invisible unknowable and completely inconsistent god.

UPDATE: Scottish Justice...

Is a dish best served at a "hero's" homecoming...



Sickening.

3 Months To Live

Megrahi was sentenced to life in prison in 2001 for taking part in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 on Dec. 21, 1988, and was to serve at least 27 years behind bars.

However, he was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer last year and doctors have said he has less than three months to live.

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Well isn't that special. I wonder how much of that three months this terrorist mass murderer will spend laughing at the weakness of the west's version of "justice".

Less Than A Parent

Is this for the rights and interests of children or against the rights and interests of Fathers?

I understand the need to legally protect the rights of children in custody battles. Being minors their voice and interest can often be lost in their parents bitterness and sundry legal machinations.

But wouldn't it have been much more proper for Minister Nicholson to say;

"The interests of children must take priority over a father's a parents right to an equal parenting role after divorce,"

As spoken, the Minister is advocating the dismissal of one parents rights based soley upon sex. Many fathers already believe that in a divorce, the mother is given preferential treatment in custody and in today's day and age that is a crime.

The statement from the minister is nothing more than a glimpse at his own predjudice, and that of many other people. It is the predjudice that labels mothers as being the nurtuting, loving, child rearing masters of men, It is sexist, baseless, discriminatory and illegal.

It's high time that equality started to mean equality all the time for everyone in this country.

The Government Effect

Health reform in Canada... have none of these people ever heard of the law of unintended consequences?

Unintended consequences are outcomes that are not (or not limited to) the results originally intended in a particular situation. They may be foreseen or unforeseen, but they should be the logical or likely results of the action.

Now what do you think might be the unintended consequence of this:

"He has also said the Canadian system could be restructured to focus on patients if hospitals and health-care institutions received funding based on the patients they treat, instead of an annual, lump-sum budget.

This "activity-based funding" would be an incentive to provide more efficient care, he has said."

Dr Ouellet is counting on all those positive consequences he's already concluded would be the result. But understanding the nature of bureaucracy isn't his forte apparently.

Bureaucracy's love their budgets, its how they live. When they are given a set budget they will spend it all, every time, in the hopes that;

a) It won't be cut next year because they proved through frugality or efficiency that they did not need all the cash and;

b) That if they spend it all they will have the opportunity to ask for more for next year so that the bureaucracy can expand (as is their wont).

But the good Doctor is proposing an open budget. One that (apparently) rewards the bureaucracy for its efficiency.

But in the land of unintended consequences is quality a necessary part of the equation? No. The only necessary part of the equation would become processing the largest possible volume of patients to receive the largest possible payment.

This system would not be a problem in a free market because if the quality of the service dropped to meet the need of efficiency then the patient would be able to go somewhere else and the offending business would be forced out of business by the companies offering both quality and efficiency.

But since all hospitals in this country are state owned there is no hope for a market correction of that type, and what you would have is hospitals becoming sausage factories. With no reason to offer quality and efficiency, then efficiency (expediency) will win out.

Once that budgetary imperative has taken hold, the other unintended consequence will rear it's head, namely the cost of health care in this country will go through the roof, which means our taxes will go through the roof.

There ought to be a corollary to the Law of Unintended Consequences called "The Government Effect" stating simply that when any government program results in unintended consequences the cost of said unintended consequences is inevitably downloaded onto the individual in the form of some tax levied against him or some sacrifice of his freedom.