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.