Surecure's Remedy

Shades of Galileo

2011-12-21T15:28:00.004-05:00

Recently, a second round of emails taken from the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia were released online. This release -- dubbed "ClimateGate 2.0" -- is once again revealing that those scientists and politicians pushing an alarmist view of Earth's climate being in danger due to manmade carbon dioxide emissions have engaged in deception, distortion, intimidation and even criminal activities as pertains to Freedom of Information legislation.

As bad as the revelation has been, the response by those whose careers and financial interests are dependent upon such alarmist dogma has been draconian.

Donna Laframboise who hosts the excellent climate change skeptic blog No Frakking Consensus and is the author of The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken For The World's Top Climate Expert recently reported on how fellow blogger Roger Tattersall -- who runs Tallbloke's Talkshop -- was recently subjugated to officially sanctioned persecution.

Tallbloke just happened to be one of the first people to report and link to the latest batch of released emails. Because of it, last week the police came to his home and seized both his computers and router and even attempted to coerce access to his blog. You can read more about it via a National Post article authored by Ms. Laframboise: Climate Crackdown.

And Tallbloke was not the only person being targeted. As it turns out, the U.S. Justice Department had sent a formal request to blogging company WordPress to have all communications and records ("evidence" as they put it) for Tallbloke as well as Jeff ID at the Air Vent (http://NOconsensus.wordpress.com) as well as noted Canadian mathematician -- and co-destroyer of Michael Mann's hockey stick -- Steve McIntyre's Climate Audit blog.

This is more than a little disturbing. The original ClimateGate emails clearly revealed criminal breaches of Access to Information laws on both sides of the ocean. Did the U.S. Justice Department send the police out to seize the computers of those involved? No. Did they send any notice to the University of East Anglia or Penn State (Michael Mann's employer) to have their data files and emails frozen as "evidence" of a crime? No.

The only action taken in response to the original ClimateGate release were complete whitewashes (greenwashes as it were) by both UK officials who barely lifted a finger in their examinations and Penn State who didn't even depose key figures who would have revealed a great deal about what was really going on.

And yet average citizen bloggers who simply redirected readers to information from another source that was out on the internet are being treated as criminals. Why? Because they did the one thing that is not to be tolerated when dealing with climate change alarmism: they were skeptics.

It just goes to show, one cannot question the supposed science nor the stances of the religious leaders of the day without facing totalitarian authority.

Science is the child of skepticism.

When skeptics are treated as heretics, you are no longer dealing with science. You are dealing with the blind faith of a religion.

NDP math for beginners!

2011-11-30T13:54:00.005-05:00

Much has been made over the NDP blasting the PM's handling of the first nations community of Attawapiskat. Some $90,000,000.00 has been spent on this community and that's just the amount since the Conservatives have been in office.

As PM Stephen Harper pointed out, when you divide that $90,000,000.00 by the 1,800 people within the community, you end up with each man, woman and child getting about $50,000.00 each.

Splitting hairs as they always do, the NDP say that there is a $4,500,000.00 deficit and when you break it down the total is either $5,000.00 or $6,000.00 or $6,500.00 per person. Well... they couldn't seem to decide on one number. So three figures are better than one.

However, if we take them at their word (like the sheep do) that there is a $4,500,000.00 deficit, over 5 years that would be $22,500,000.00 in total.

When you subtract that from the $90,000,000.00 spent you end up with $67,500,000.00 left.

Divide that by 5 years and you have $13,500,000.00 per year.

Divide that by the 1,800 people in the community and you have $7,500.00 per person / per year.

Which basically means that the margin of error on the NDP's figures is somewhere between 15% (at the $6,500.00 amount) and 50% (at the $5,000.00 amount).

Utterly spectacular math skills they've got going there. And they wonder why the clear majority of the country won't let their grubby hands anywhere near the country's finances.

A little perspective on Canada's homicide rate...

2011-10-26T17:57:00.008-04:00

A friend of mine posted an article today in the Globe & Mail discussing new statistical data indicating that Canada's homicide rate is down to its lowest levels in 44 years. She being one opposing the Conservatives used this information to debase the Conservatives law and order agenda specifically as it relates to prisons.

Here's how I look at it.

The peak murder rate over the last 44 years was in 1975 when Canada was at 3.03 murders per 100,000 people. Today the rate is at 1.3 murders per 100,000 people.

Dropping roughly 57 percent seems like a big deal, enough that it might call into question the need for more prisons today right? Well, not really.

If you look at statistical data on violent crime, 44 years ago there were approximately 350 incidents of violent crime per 100,000 people. That peaked with a spike around 1992 to roughly 1,100 incidents per 100,000. Today, the rate is approximately 900 incidents per 100,000.

With those numbers in hand you can determine that homicide accounted for 0.37% of all violent crime in 1967 and 0.6% at its 1970's peak. Today it accounts for 0.17% of all violent crimes.

So while it may seem like there's a huge drop in homicide rates, as a percentage of all violent crimes it amounted to a decrease of 0.43% from the peak rate and 0.2% from where it was 44 years ago.

Hardly seems impressive, doesn't it?

If the media and the left want to talk about crime over the last 44 years, I'm all for it. Our violent crime rate today is 260% of what it was 44 years ago. Doesn't sound like crime is under control when you put it that way, does it?

*** Update ***

A comment by BlameCrash actually makes a very interesting point. These numbers are representative of a per 100,000 people in Canada. But that doesn't take into account the growing population.

The population was 20 million in 1966, 22 million in 1976 and is presently 33.7 million. If one were to assume the percentage convicted remained the same, that would mean that the prison population today would actually be 4 times that of what it was in the 1960's.

Yet, when one looks at incarceration rates, this is not the case. Alarmingly, it is quite the opposite!

In fact, in 1966 the total number of adults incarcerated was twice the number of incidents of violent crime. By the 1990's the numbers were exactly the same. So, while violent crime had been increasing, the number sent to prison for violent offences as a percent of all convictions would have actually had to decrease significantly.

Do we need any further proof that violent offences have been treated with increasing leniency?

Thieves preying on "poor" Wall Street protestors

2011-10-19T12:40:00.007-04:00

The New York Post had an interesting article posted yesterday about how thieves had been preying on the Occupy Wall Street protestors.

I feel sorry for anybody that has been robbed. But the first few paragraphs of the article were particularly enlightening.

Occupy Wall Street protesters said yesterday that packs of brazen crooks within their ranks have been robbing their fellow demonstrators blind, making off with pricey cameras, phones and laptops -- and even a hefty bundle of donated cash and food.
“Stealing is our biggest problem at the moment,” said Nan Terrie, 18, a kitchen and legal-team volunteer from Fort Lauderdale.
“I had my Mac stolen -- that was like $5,500."

Hmm... pricey cameras, phones and a $5,500 Apple laptop. I have an Apple laptop. I can't afford one that runs $5,500 though.

I guess I need to be part of the 1 percent of the 99 percent of the... whatever...

A Legend Is Gone... adieu Mr. Jobs.

2011-10-05T22:38:00.003-04:00

There are some people who are great for one reason or another. They invent something fantastic. They create works of beauty. They contribute to the world and change it in one way or another for the better.

But what do we say about somebody who changed everything we do?

There are very few people like that. Steve Jobs, who passed away today at the far too young age of 56, was one of those few.

If one is to look around at the world today, there is almost nothing that hasn't been touched by what he put in motion. In the world of personal computers, Jobs has been at the forefront of technology since the earliest days.

The Apple and Apple II were some of the earliest and most successful mass-market computers to hit the marketplace. Steve Jobs is largely credited with the adoption of multiple fonts including proportionally spaced fonts. The Macintosh was the first commercially viable computer to hit the market that featured both a graphical user interface (GUI) and a mouse and is largely credited with having pushed both features to the forefront of home computing.

(And before anybody gets into the debate about Microsoft ripping off Apple, the truth is that Apple's wasn't the first GUI out there and the original Microsoft team worked with Apple. Apple however was the first to market and first to make a viable case for GUI's in the personal computing world. That said, Windows has been playing catch up with Apple ever since.)

When he was forced out of Apple he created NeXT and bought out a tiny animation studio called Pixar. It is largely due to his visionary ideals that Pixar is what it is today. And when he came back to Apple as it floundered in the marketplace creeping towards almost certain death, he turned it all around.

As the iMac shows, he saw the obsolescence of disk drives several years before the competition did. And the iMac paved the way for single component home computers going from the colourful little dome-shaped devices, to the flatscreen on a half-basketball device to the all in one monitor and computer.

His love for music saw the rise of the iPod which revolutionized portable music players. The iTunes store changed how music is sold in a simple way that even record companies came to appreciate.

Then there was the iPhone. While the Blackberry and Palm were well established, the iPhone with it's fully touch screen functionality and integration with music playback turned the smartphone market on its head. It is now in regular competition with Google's Android phone market for the top spot.

And of course we have the iPad. Tablet PC's when introduced were largely considered as strange computers for tech geeks and nobody else. Leave it to Apple to come up with a device so user-friendly and intuitive with complete cross-relation to its iPod and iPhone technologies as to become an instant hit. And while many other tablets have come to market (and some have already gone) the iPad is still the market leader.

I have used Apple products almost exclusively (school and work account for the "almost" part) for the past seventeen years. As a computer geek who has ripped apart and built PC's and has worked with every version of Windows since Windows 3 was released, my adoration for Mac's OS has grown stronger with every buggy version of Windoze.

I use my MacBook at work because it is the only thing fast and intuitive enough in its design to keep up with how I think. The ability to jump between screens and interact on multiple levels at the same time is wonderful. The instantaneous Finder and the Quicklook preview features makes my work life a breeze.

I'm a musician. I compose, record, mix and produce my band's music on Macs. There really is no comparison when comparing Windows music software to the same software on a Mac. The performance difference is undeniable.

I'm a writer. I've written several screenplays on my Mac.

I use my MacBook to watch movies while traveling. I use my iPod everyday as I commute to work.

I have been on the verge of getting my first smartphone for the past few months. I was waiting until this month as I knew the next version of the iPhone was going to be available. And when I see what Apple's Siri software does, acting as a virtual assistant that runs on voice command doing everything you want it to do in calling, texting and scheduling, I honestly can't wait.

I love the iPad and can see so many uses in my future. The compatibility between it and several music applications I use is perfect. It's ability as an e-reader and video playback device is fantastic.

And I have to say, Pixar has created some of my favourite films over the past twenty years.

When I look over my life and how Steve Jobs has played a part in almost everything I do, it is almost unfathomable.

How do you measure that?

He was a leader. He was an innovator. He was a pioneer. He was brave in the face of being cast out of his own company. He persisted and created other great things. He was vindicated in being brought back to run his own company.

He had a hand in changing the experience of every computer user in the world regardless of the operating system. He changed the world of music.

I am sad to see Steve Jobs go. There will never be another person quite like him.

Creative Accounting and the Toronto Budget

2011-07-16T13:03:00.007-04:00

Previously, I mentioned the abysmal track record of David Miller who left Toronto's debt and annual budget 50 percent higher only seven years after he arrived. As such, it isn't very difficult to understand how every year he would have posted larger and larger budget shortfalls.

The budget before David Miller took office had a projected shortfall of $128.9 million. David Miller's first budget in 2004 had a project shortfall of $344 million. In 2005, it rose to $400 million. In 2006, $532 million. In 2007, $575 million. In 2008, $415 million. And in 2009, $679 million.

Notice how most of the time the shortfall got higher and higher and never once got into the arena of a surplus? Even after the introduction of the Vehicle Registration and Land Transfer Taxes as well as a 3% property tax hike, the 2009 budget deficit continued to bloom.

And yet in 2010, shortly before his departure, David Miller was able to pull off a magic trick of going from continuous and at times record deficits into a $250 million surplus. He even found an extra $100 million in a sock drawer in City Hall just before he left office.

It's a miracle!

Present Mayor Rob Ford, having already toasted the Vehicle Registration and Land Transfer taxes, is projecting a $774 million budget shortfall for 2011. Of course, Ford opponents are up in arms suggesting he has been lying about the "gravy train" spending down at City Hall and that he somehow has created a $1 billion turnaround in Toronto's financial situation.

Now, I don't believe government budgets. I'm of the mindset that budgets are one part accounting and three parts political theatre and always assume that whoever is in power is going to be playing creative accounting to make their opponents look bad and themselves look good. But looking at the numbers, one very interesting thing popped into my mind...

It's really hard to believe that with no major spending cuts Miller could push Toronto's financials $1 billion upwards over the course of one year during the worst recession since the Great Depression. It's equally hard to believe that having actually decreased spending Rob Ford could push Toronto's financials $1 billion downwards even with ridding Toronto of two of David Miller's tax grabs.

However, if the shortfall in 2009 was $680 million and let's say hypothetically that nothing actually did change going into 2010's budget and the surplus was creative accounting. And let's also say hypothetically that Miller honestly did find $100 million.

Using 2009's numbers that would put the budget shortfall at $580 million. That's roughly $200 million less than this year's projected shortfall. Coincidentally, $200 million is precisely what was taken out of city revenues with Rob Ford's cancellation of the vehicle registration and land transfer taxes.

It's almost like David Miller's last budget shortfall never did turn into a surplus and this year's increased shortfall was entirely because of the Vehicle Registration and Land Transfer Tax elimination.

But I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

Anti floor-crossing bill and the Titanic's deck chairs

2011-06-15T11:31:00.005-04:00

There has been some talk recently about NDP MP Peter Stoffer's attempts to pass a bill that would prevent MP's from leaving one party to join another party in the House of Commons... commonly referred to as floor-crossing. It is his and many other people's belief that if a person is elected under the banner of one party, for them to leave that party and join another is a betrayal of the constituents who elected that MP.

Nonsense.

The problem is not in whether a person leaves one party and joins another. The problem is with the whole concept of parties in general.

Citizens are voting for parties. Not for ideas. Not for MP's who live in the area and understand both the needs and how to best represent the interests of the constituents. They are voting for parties.

The recent election of countless placeholder NDP MP's in Quebec is indicative of the real problem here. How is it possible that people who have never set foot in an area can become the functional leader of that area?

The fact that the focus is on the party and not on the individual best suited to represent the local constituents is a betrayal of the whole concept of local representation in government. Local constituents are no longer voting for local representation. They are voting largely for the image and rhetoric and not for needs and ideas.

I have no sympathy for this bill because it is nothing but rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Party focused systems of government are the problem, not whether a person decides that the best interests for their constituents lies in voting or even sitting with the government.

If he or anybody else has a problem with MP's deciding that it is better to be part of the government who makes decisions affecting their local constituency rather than part of a party on the sidelines, then the solution is simple. Don't ban floor-crossing. Ban the concept of parties. That would take care of two birds with one stone.

No more placeholder candidates.

No more floor-crossing.

Just a return to the real purpose of local representation.

Follow Up: Jack makes good

2011-06-08T13:12:00.004-04:00

As a follow up to my previous post calling Jack Layton out on his stance on civility in the House of Commons and the episode of former Senate page Brigitte DePape's disrespect to the Governor General, the House of Commons and Parliament in general...

...I have to commend him on doing what none of my left-wing friends are doing and stating that what she did was in fact wrong.

I guess he realized the gulf that would exist between a call for civility and keeping silent after the first shot taken is from his side of the political spectrum. Of course, while nobody is acting out, it's just as expected seeing how the smugness and insincerity hasn't taken a bow yet.

But it's a start.

I guess it helps when the natural egotist party isn't the one taking the lead and guiding the House of Commons' civility into a nosedive on the first chance to speak.

Calling Out Jack Layton On Civility

2011-06-05T08:18:00.005-04:00

So, Jack... you're the one who was so fired up about civility in this session of Parliament. Not that you've really kept your word so far.

I have yet to hear word one from you about Brigette DePape, the young Senate page who disrupted the Governor General during the throne speech with a dramatic and churlish demonstration.

It doesn't surprise me that the media seems to be going out of its way to avoid having to ask you your opinion on this. It's much easier for them to build this unprofessional imbecile up as some martyr of civil disobedience without exposing her to the yardstick that you set for Parliament.

But if you're so dedicated to transforming Parliament into a place where the people charged by Canadians to keep the wheels of government turning productively and politely, let's hear what you have to say about one of those people turning her back on her responsibilities and in fact disrespecting the institution and mechanisms (the throne speech) of Parliament.

The definition of civility is quite clear. And this page certainly was neither courteous nor polite.

So let's hear it.

We'll wait.

Globe & Mail Engages In A Blistering Attack

2011-06-02T17:11:00.010-04:00

Let's get this straight.

According to the Globe & Mail, the Conservative Party is testing the NDP's pledge to seek more civility and respect between members of Parliament" by launching a "blistering attack" on the NDP.

What was that blistering attack? International Trade Minister Ed Fast said that the policies the NDP have said they want to put forward would be bad for business.

Now, let's compare.

Mr. Fast called Jack Layton's party “reflexively and ideologically anti-trade,” accusing it of acting contrary to the interests of “hard-working Canadians."

So, according to the Globe & Mail this is what one could consider to be a "blistering attack". Never mind that article author Steven Chase was reduced to cutting and pasting one or two word fragments as quotes to make his point that this was some kind of "blistering attack".

Now, let's compare that to what Jack Layton said a couple of days ago about the Harper Government's response to the flooding in Quebec:

"His policy is to not help people. He said he's not there to do the cleanup or something to that effect. That is an attitude that does not respect the population."

And...

"And the idea that they don't want to interfere with the private sector . what is this? You want to promote the private sector to make money off the misery of people.
"What kind of an attitude is that? Is that the beginning of the attitude we're going to see on the privatization of health care and the privatization of all kinds of things which should be done by the government?

And those were just straight up, full sentence quotes of Jack Layton. Didn't even have to cut it down to one or two word fragments to frame what he said.

Geez... I don't know. I can't figure out which is more of a "blistering attack". Mind you it's not like we expect such incivility from Mr. Layton, the least civil MP in the House of Commons.

There really is only one clear element to this entire brouhaha involved in a blistering attack.

That would be the editorial staff of the Globe & Mail.

Of Witnesses and Weakness

2011-05-27T11:36:00.006-04:00

One week ago, the trial of the suspected murderers of Jordan Manners -- a grade 9 student shot to death in the halls of C.W. Jeffery's Collegiate in Toronto -- concluded with a verdict of not-guilty. The trial really hung on the testimony of two witnesses, one of whom retracted testimony and another that changed their testimony significantly.

In this case, the witnesses were too scared to testify.

This week, the SIU concluded it's investigation into the beating of Dorian Barton, a protestor at last year's G20 summit. The SIU determined there was not enough evidence to lay charges against the police officer accused of the beating even though a photographer witnessed the beating, identified the officer and provided a photo of the officer.

The police no doubt knew which officers were assigned what areas. Process of elimination alone would have been enough to figure out this bully with a badge. Even with all of this, none of the officers in the vicinity of the beating would identify the accused. Not even the roommate of this officer during the summit.

In this case, the police are too scared to testify.

Two crimes. Same problem. Same results: justice denied.

How can we as a society expect citizen witnesses to face their fear, stand up and testify against criminals if the police themselves won't? How can the police expect cooperation in the prosecution of criminals if they themselves will not cooperate? Do they really expect that citizens will bend over backwards -- such as freely providing DNA samples -- when the police give them every reason not to be trusted?

This is a sad, sad week for Canadian justice. I am a big supporter of our police officers having a cousin who is a member of the Ontario Provincial Police. But I expect more of them than this, certainly more than citizens who live in an area with one of the highest crime rates in the entire country. It is a tragic statement on our society when even the police are actively involved in the denial of justice.

Cowards.

On the Decorum of the House of Commons

2011-05-25T17:10:00.003-04:00

Seeing as we are only one week and one day away from the start of the next session of Parliament, I thought I would take the time to discuss the importance of decorum in the House of Commons.

Many people are turned off by MP's turning sessions of Parliament into mudslinging contests. Of course, this is nothing new. However, we have heard time and again how it is the Conservatives who have supposedly dragged down decorum in the House of Commons.

Out of interest, I thought I would go to the Government of Canada's Hansard to see exactly how quickly the decorum of the House of Commons started to go downhill and who got the ball rolling. The first day of the session was Monday, April 3rd 2006 which basically boiled down to everybody congratulating each other and the choosing of the Speaker of the House.

The second day -- Tuesday, April 4th -- was the first day getting down to business. The opening of Parliament and Oaths of Office were fairly standard. Then came the Speech from the Throne which outlined the government's agenda and the address in reply. All very straightforward.

But the question remains... at what point did decorum break down? Was it halfway through the question period? Three quarters of the way?

Try the very first question by a member of the Opposition!

And of course it was courtesy of everybody's favourite, the member of Mississauga South, Mr. Paul Szabo wherein he brings up the proposed cut to the GST calling it "unholy".

I'm wondering if there are any Liberals out there who might be able to explain the word "unholy" as being procedural or technical.

So, the next time anybody says that it is the Conservative Party of Canada that lowered the decorum of the House of Commons when it took office, kindly point out that the party who took the first shot was the Liberal Party and the man who pulled the trigger was Paul Szabo on the very first question.

Oh, how we'll miss him.

David Mamet: A Hollywood Icon Gone Conservative

2011-05-15T19:51:00.005-04:00

I've been a fan of David Mamet for quite some time. His stage and screenplays are nothing short of iconic and have been celebrated time and time again. If you're unfamiliar with his work, he wrote the plays The Lakeboat, American Buffalo, Glengarry Glen Ross as well as films such as The Untouchables, Wag the Dog, The Edge and Ronin amongst countless others. Needless to say, the man is incredibly talented, skilled and intelligent.

Having grown up, studied with and been surrounded by the arts community, he spent much of his life as a left-wing liberal criticizing capitalist America. However, this view never really shone through in his works which focused more on the tragic nature of human interactions. Over the past decade he slowly came to realize that what he and his liberal friends said and what they lived were quite often two different things.

While he criticized capitalism and American society, he cherished and held tight to both aspects of his home. He even noticed this tendency amongst the far left-wing people he had long admired. It was this contradictory nature that led him to dub himself a "Brain Dead Liberal". In 2008, he even wrote an op-ed for The Village Voice titled David Mamet: Why I Am No Longer A 'Brain-Dead Liberal'. It is certainly worth a read.

In June, Mamet is set to release a new book titled The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture. And in the latest edition of the Weekly Standard there is a very interesting article called Converting Mamet that outlines Mamet's transformation, his skewering of the education system as a thought destroying clone machine and his views on the hypocrisy of liberals who cry foul at a system that they cling to harder than anyone.

The book is supposedly an exploration of Mamet's turning point from the brain dead liberal to a conservative who understands the strengths and opportunity that capitalist Western civilization offers anyone fortunate enough to live in such a system. It's always nice to witness when such an influential writer and a Hollywood icon finally sees through the nonsensical demonization of conservative politics and finds a place for himself.

From the makers of Scam Wow!

2011-05-13T13:06:00.002-04:00

Definitely the solution to global warming / climate change / climate disruption / insert-next-ill-conceived-and-deceptive-terminology-here.

* Viewer Discretion is Advised *

Dispelling the Myth of the 60% Against Harper

2011-05-04T11:36:00.005-04:00

We've heard it before. It's nothing new. Supporters of the NDP and the also-ran parties are once again claiming that, while the Conservatives achieved a majority, a clear majority of 60 percent of Canadians voted against the Conservatives.

Mindless, uneducated nonsense.

The only way to claim that the majority were voting against the Conservatives is if there was a virtual guarantee that either the Conservatives, a) could not have polled higher than they did on election day, or b) could in no way have hit 50 percent of the vote.

Running up to the election, polls had the Conservatives as high as 43 percent or as low as 36 percent with the Conservatives most of the time hovering in the 39 percent region.

However, Compass appears to be one of the few companies that asked the all-important question that the "Anything But Conservative" equation absolutely depends upon: voter's second intentions.

And that is a telling story indeed.

According to the real world numbers, the Conservatives were the second choice for 11 percent of the population. So, the idea that the majority of voters were voting against the Harper Conservatives has no basis in reality.

In fact, if the Conservatives kept their steady base of 39 percent and everybody who would have voted for the Conservatives with their second choice in fact did vote for their second choice, the Conservatives would have unquestionably cracked the majority marker.

But I'm not arguing against reality the way that the whining, sore-losers are. The reality is that 39 percent of the population voted for the Conservatives. And knowing that the Conservatives were the second choice of enough voters to put them into absolute majority territory, suggesting that 60 percent of Canadians voted against the Conservatives only holds true if you also say that:

69% of voters voted against the NDP
81% of voters voted against the Liberals
94% of voters voted against the Bloc
96% of voters voted against the Green Party

Now, can we put this sore-loser nonsense to bed once and for all?

** UPDATE **

And one other point I wanted to mention. The idea of an "Anything But Conservative" majority has one other major detractor. We already know how much support Canadians had in the past with an "Anything But Conservative" situation. And only 4 out of 10 Canadians supported it.

Anything? Sorry, but it looks like that 60 percent number is actually the opposite: 60 percent of Canadians are against "ANYTHING But Conservative".

** SECOND UPDATE **

In the comments, Oxygentax linked his list of significant decisions/programs made by parties who obtained a majority of the house without achieving a majority of the votes. Considering the snail's pace of significant government decisions/programs one sees in minority governments (such as the past 5 years) I imagine that you could easily count a good two-thirds of that list as gone. (h/t to Oxygentax)

And on a related note, imagine how exaggerated that kind of problem would be in a multi-party proportional representation system. Actually, you don't even have to imagine...

Blue Liberals: are you scared yet? It's time to choose...

2011-04-28T13:56:00.004-04:00

One has to wonder whether the blue Liberals are starting to get scared. After all, with the possibility of the Liberal party facing extinction and the NDP taking a shot at the big chair, the fiscally conservative arm of the Liberal party certainly will need to take stock.

As much as they don't like Harper, are they willing to risk Jack Layton being the one to fuel the economic engines of Canada?

As much as they don't like the moderately conservative social policies of the present Conservative Party, are they willing to watch the NDP drag all those wonderful social programs that Liberals love down the toilet with disastrous corporate tax raises and Bob Rae-esque spending promises, neither of which can be afforded as we recover from the worst recession since the Great Depression?

It really is far past time they start to ask whether a vote for the Liberal party is in fact a vote for Jack Layton. The extreme left elements of the Liberal party are already leaving the deflating big red tent in droves to bolster the wind in Jack Layton's sails. All those blue Liberals out there really need to look in the mirror and ask whether they can afford sticking around to see an NDP led coalition.

The blue Liberals can't kid themselves any longer. While Ignatieff has been deceptive on this front, Jack Layton has made no secret of his goal of a coalition since day one of the campaign. If the polls turn true to the NDP, the economy of Canada and everything connected to it -- and if you can't do the math that means literally everything -- is in jeopardy.

So, blue Liberals... what say you?

Are you going to go down with the sinking ship?

Or are you going to be the bigger man/woman and responsibly vote for a party that will keep the NDP's hands off the economy and out of our pockets?

You know the Liberal party is not going to pull out of this nosedive. Are you really willing to let the country go down with your party?

A vote for Iggy is a vote for... Jack?

2011-04-21T15:28:00.003-04:00

How often have we heard the Liberals cry that a vote for the NDP is a vote for the Conservatives? That scare tactic is most certainly about to die a horrific death.

Polls are showing NDP support clearly blazing upwards. We have two polls (LaPresse and Ekos) both stating the NDP have taken first place in Quebec with Nanos' latest numbers showing the NDP surging not only in Quebec but also in a three-way dead heat in Atlantic Canada and overtaking the Liberals in both the Prairies and BC.

Nobody can downplay or understate the significance of this turn of events.

I cannot see the Liberals old-school scare tactic used against NDP supporters working this time around. Only die-hard Liberals (and not even all of them) are impressed by Michael Ignatieff. NDP supporters certainly aren't impressed with Ignatieff's support of the invasion of Iraq and his right-winger in a left-winger cloak fakery.

With the Liberal Party's numbers clearly shifting downwards right across the country (with the exception of Ontario so far) there is no chance regionally speaking that NDP supporters are going to switch over to the Liberals now to "stop Harper" as it were. They most certainly are going to be buoyed at the prospect of Jack Layton finally getting the traction they have all longed to see for years.

The NDP need only rise 4.6% in the national polling to overtake the Liberals. And considering that there are ten days to the election and the NDP have clearly risen more than that amount in the past five days, all bets are off.

Jack Layton has had no qualms discussing his desire for a coalition government. If the NDP are able to sap away enough Liberal seats, that would put the NDP in the power position as the official Opposition party. In a coalition government, that would mean one thing: Prime Minister Jack Layton.

Can you think of any other title in the world that would be as likely to scare the pants off of every blue Liberal in Canada? I think not.

It's still a long shot. And we all know that with ten days left in this election anything can happen. But if the NDP continues it's upwards trajectory across the map, the Liberals are most certainly going to become the also-ran in the coalition dream. And blue Liberals don't hate Stephen Harper enough to risk a socialist government with a separatist party holding the strings.

Could it be that we'll soon be hearing the phrase, "A vote for Ignatieff is a vote for Layton?"

Sun News: You Get What You Pay For

2011-04-21T00:07:00.005-04:00

I was one who, when I first heard that the Sun News Network was coming, was hopeful that we would finally get a quality news service that would start to balance out the extreme leftist bias in the media. If there could be a service that would rival the CBC and CTV in quality of programming while giving a different perspective that Canadians could grasp, it would no doubt be a wonderful thing.

It has been a couple of days since Sun News Network launch. And while it's great to see Ezra Levant and Charles Adler with their own TV news shows and it's nice to see a non-leftist news source out there, I really have no choice but to say it...

It looks truly and utterly awful.

Sorry, but it does.

It looks like it was done on the cheap using lighting technicians, cameramen, editors, segment producers, sound engineers, makeup artists and facilities designers of the cheapest order.

Let's take a look at one segment as an example. Here is a segment called "America: From Makers to Takers" from the Caldwell Account. Now, it's a great discussion topic. But the presentation is so utterly horrible that one has to wonder who was in charge in making it.

The cameras they are using are obviously not of the highest quality. That or the videographers just don't know how to set them up properly.
Theo Caldwell's makeup is terrible. It's patchy and he has circles under his eyes. This may seem petty but let's be realistic. Looks are everything in modern television. And you can't have hosts that look like they just walked in from the street.
The lighting in the studio has most certainly been just thrown up. No thought process went into it and I would be willing to bet that there are standard room style florescent ceiling bulbs on above as well. This basically sucks the contrast of the host out so that he becomes washed out and nothing but another element to a room full of equally important backdrops.
The camera is positioned in a downward angle on Theo (it's looking down at him). Anybody who knows anything about camera angles knows that a downward angle is used to denote a lack of power and authority. It's the very reason why whenever you see iconic images of people of power or you see product commercials where a person is being presented as decisive and powerful and self-assured, the camera is always, always angled upwards. This is one of the most basic principles of photography and videography that I have a hard time believing that the person on the camera isn't doing it on purpose.
The camera has also obviously been placed at a far distance away from Theo with the lens zoomed in. You don't do that if you want the person to look anything but small. A person's appearance is all dependent upon a camera's position. If you don't believe me, take a picture of a person at a distance with your camera zoomed in and then walk close to the person and take another picture such that the person fills the same amount of the screen. You'll see that the closer you get, the larger and more rigid your features are.
Theo sounds like a boy. Why? Because the audio engineers have done nothing to his voice. Nothing! They have not equalized it so that his voice is thicker and appears deeper. Instead, it sounds tinny and weak. Once again, this is basic audio engineering that reduces his appearance as authoritative, powerful and captivating.
At 0:06, there is a video clip from a manufacturing plant. No problem except that the video is on pause for 3 seconds before it gets going. On pause! This is as amateur hour as one can get. If it's video, you leave it running from start to finish. If it's a still, you leave it as a still. But you don't start a video segment with it in pause.
At 1:04, the camera moves to the right for no purpose and then back to the left to stop at 1:05. It then sits there for 2 seconds before it starts to move to the left again to position Theo on the right hand side of the screen. For no reason! What is with that?!?! It's ridiculous.
At 3:10, the camera shifts up so that Theo stays in the frame. This is one of the reasons why a camera should be placed at a low angle: when the camera is low and facing up, a person moving back and forth, up and down will always stay in frame because they will actually look like they are getting every so slightly closer and ever so slightly farther away from the camera. Once again, basic videography.
At 5:07, the camera moves slightly back to the right and stops then moves slightly down and stops so that it is basically back to where it was at the very beginning of the segment.
At 5:27, the camera once again has to shift around to keep Theo in frame.
At 5:42, it switches to a second camera on Ezra Levant. And I couldn't believe what I saw. Behind the opaque backdrop behind and to the right of him (just over the SunNews logo) you can see that the light is flickering. Why? Because they're using dying lightbulbs in their backlights! It's insane and looks just downright awful.

Now, some might say I'm just nitpicking. Nonsense. If a news organization wants to paint itself as refreshing, new and competitive, it has to at least get the basics down. It has to look as good if not better than its competition.

Let's compare it to the network it was being linked to, Fox News.

Here is a Bill O'Reilly segment called "Donald Trump Closer to Running for President" that is a straight angle on the host and has segments with a guest just like the above video.

Notice how O'Reilly looks larger on camera and seems more authoritative. It's because the camera is closer to him physically, is zoomed in further and isn't looking down on him.

Notice how his features are more defined. That's because with him being closer, the camera's angle on his features draws certain things forward (nose, lips, forehead) while pushing other things back (ears, hair).

Notice that he stands out from the background. That's because he is being lit more than the background thus contrasting him against it rather than having him washed out with it.

Notice how little the camera has to move to keep him in view. When a camera is positioned properly (straight on or from below) the host's movements aren't as drastic.

Notice how deep O'Reilly's voice is. This is because the person at the soundboard has actually taken the time to mix him properly.

Notice when Trump joins the segment. The image is stable and consistent in colour and tone because cheap backlights aren't being used and overhead florescent lights aren't being used.

As well, when the front camera is on, both are on the edge of the screen but closer together. This creates dramatic tension because it adds the sense of combativeness like two titans facing off.

Notice that O'Reilly is off to the side of the screen only when there is something that is to take up the other side such as notes and quotations. By having more than just a face on the screen, it creates more to grab the eye.

Now, this is just a cursory evaluation of one Sun News segment and I didn't even dissect it all. But having watched a few Sun News segments I have to say that there isn't much of a difference between any of them. Honestly, you get what you pay for. And I imagine that whoever they hired to design, produce and craft this channel, it was as cheap as they could get.

It is really too bad because, were they just to employ some very basic production principles, the channel would really be a threat to the CBC and CTV news channels. Here's hoping that they start to recognize that they need professionals really doing their job if they want the channel to be anything more than Wayne's World being cut using iMovie.

Christmas Has Come Early... Thank You, Iggy

2011-04-19T22:16:00.004-04:00

Michael Ignatieff has finally and outrightly confirmed it: if the Conservatives get a minority, the Liberal, NDP and Bloc parties will vote them down and form a coalition government.

Not a formal coalition. Just an informal coalition.

Got that?

I'm sure the Conservatives -- who have kept the powder dry and haven't really been on an advertising blitz yet -- got that loud and clear. And I'm also sure Canadians will not be impressed by the word games. The Conservatives now have been given their opening to confirm to Canadians that what they've been saying all along is true, all wrapped up in a bow.

So... Conservative war room... Christmas has come early.

Go get 'em! :-)

Best news all day: the era of Fidel Castro has ended

2011-04-19T15:21:00.003-04:00

Finally, after decades of unsustainable Soviet-style communism, Cuba is finally making steps forward to the modern world as Fidel Castro steps down.

As his brother Raul Castro introduces reforms to allow property rights, end price control and ween the public off of complete dependence on the state, we who are pro-freedom and pro-capitalism must encourage the moves. Encouraging is the seeking of ten year term limits on party leadership.

Mind you, a term limit in a still communist state isn't the same as in a democratic state. But a step in the right direction is still a step in the right direction. Here's hoping that the changes will harken a return to prosperity for the Cuban people who have long suffered under the policies of the dictator Fidel.

And we can only hope that the fall of strict communism in Cuba after the fall of strict communism in China will help to shake things up in North Korea, Venezuela and all other communist countries helping them see that free markets encourage competition which results in constant, necessary innovation which leads to a cycle of prosperity for all.

On a side note...

As a musician, I tend to have a specific hatred for the ignorance of what communism does to the creative soul. When you have to get permission to create, to innovate, to express and to perform, art is stifled and expression is not a right. That's why it bothers me when I see artists who simply don't get it.

If you ever want an idea as to how communism can destroy creative freedom, you should check out the movie For Love Or Country: the Arturo Sandoval Story starring Andy Garcia. It tells the true story of Arturo Sandoval, arguably the greatest trumpet player ever and how he had no choice but to flee Cuba to be everything he dreamed of being.

It's both an excellent drama all around but as a true story it is also a lesson in how much the world has been denied such a beautiful culture.

New Liberal Attack Ads: the "You Had An Option, Sir" moment of this Election!

2011-04-18T13:18:00.009-04:00

I really hope somebody in the Harper camp reads this...

Obviously a lot of us know how the Liberals have released an ad on TV that misattributes a quote made by National Citizens Coalition president David Somerville to Stephen Harper. The Conservatives are of course demanding the Liberals withdraw the ads.

WORST MOVE EVER!!!!

What is the Conservative camp thinking? This is the absolute perfect opportunity to absolutely destroy the Liberals! This IS the, "You had an option, sir" moment of this campaign... and the Conservatives are just going to leave it sitting on the table?!?!

First of all, the Liberals are spending money on these ads. Whatever dollars they have going towards these ads will not be going to other ads.

But secondly and more importantly, they are buying the rope on which they can be hung! There is ample evidence that this quote is an outright lie. All the Conservatives have to do is let this ad play for a few days and then release their own ad that:

Shows who the quote is really from and proves that the Liberal ad is an out and out lie.
Shows how Ignatieff and the Liberals refused to pull the ad when it was proven to be a lie (you know... they had an option?).
Shows to every Canadian just how low the Liberals are willing to go.

Think about it! It is absolutely impossible for that quote to be validated. And so long as the public finds out that the Liberals have been lying to the public in that ad, the Conservatives can paint the entire Liberal campaign with the same brush. If this weakens Liberal support even a little -- and the NDP is starting to draw off Liberal support -- the Conservatives can make their majority and they don't even have to go up in the polls.

I really hope the Conservatives change course in trying to get these ads pull. This could be the perfect check-mate to this whole chess game of a campaign. Right now they are missing a golden opportunity to end this campaign once and for all.

Elections Canada is a disgrace... Marc Mayrand must resign!

2011-04-15T16:43:00.008-04:00

I have had enough of the BS in this election.

Everyday I read the inane rantings of people who accuse the Conservatives of nonsense that always proves to be either taken out of context, overblown or an outright fabrication. This has been going on since the Conservatives came to power; faux scandals like Wafergate, body bags, H1N1, door knobs, logos, even the word "NOT".

But the crap that Elections Canada has pulled -- and continues to pull -- is simply disgraceful!

This whole Guelph ballot box fiasco is truly disgusting. It's bad enough that Elections Canada is allowing a non-preauthorized polling station to continue collecting ballots against Elections Canada rules... that's bad enough. But to also have no scrutineers and to have partisan literature present within the polling facility and still allow that polling station to be counted as legitimate and untainted? It's unbelievable!

I have just written the following letter to Elections Canada (I invite you to do the same here) to object over this absolutely ridiculous decision by Elections Canada to ignore its own rules:

It is with great disappointment that I have come aware of the situation taking place in Guelph in respects to the challenged special polling station. It is particularly upsetting that Elections Canada is ignoring it's own mandate and it's own rules in allowing the votes cast at an illegitimate polling station to be included amongst valid votes by citizens respecting the rule of law.

This is not the first time unauthorized polling stations (notably at Universities) have been contested. In the past, polling stations that did not comply with the rules of Election Canada were considered invalid and thus sealed and uncounted.

A poll must be pre-registered and pre-authorized by Elections Canada. If it is not, it is simply a person with a box collecting pieces of paper that resemble ballots. A non-authorized polling station does not have any authenticity in an election. That alone should discount the ballots collected.

Additionally, without scrutineers to ensure the voting process is conducted according to Elections Canada rules, a vote cannot be considered untainted. A polling station might as well be set up in a candidate's office if no scrutineer is present. Scrutineers are the single most important control measure that Canadians have to ensure fair and accurate elections.

Additionally, the fact that campaign literature was present at the voting location -- expressly forbidden by Elections Canada -- further justifies the ballots collected to be nullified. Campaign literature or advertisements within a polling station is a clear violation of the rules of Elections Canada.

It is bad enough that one set of rules is ignored by Elections Canada. But when two or three or more sets of rules are ignored, one might as well dismantle Elections Canada altogether since it clearly does not believe the rules it enacts are of any importance.

I call on the Chief Electoral Officer to either follow the rules and make sure they are being enforced or to release a statement that denotes those rules will no longer be enforced. Selective enforcement of electoral rules is a clear affront to the entire democratic process. I look forward to your response.

It's time that Elections Canada meets its mandate or it tears itself down. Either way, after prosecuting the Conservatives over the In-And-Out BS scandal while the NDP's were actually given permission to do the same... after the media was leaked of Elections Canada's imminent assault on the Conservative Party HQ... and after Marc Mayrand investigated his own freakin' self (!!!!) over the leaks... and now Elections Canada ignoring it's own rules and even showing another clear double-standard, Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand has failed in his mandate for the last time.

Marc Mayrand is a disgrace to Canadian democracy and must resign as Chief Electoral Officer of Canada.

Hypocrisy: Leftie's on Gun Registry VS Leftie's on Prisons

2011-04-14T00:32:00.003-04:00

I was recently debating the necessity of the gun registry with a bunch of very left leaning individuals today who were decrying the Tories wanting to dismantle the long-gun registry. Their argument is that the registry helps with regards to violent crimes.

I did some research to back up some of my arguments and came across a great little page on the Statistics Canada website. They have a collection of statistical data concerning gun crime in Canada.

What was really curious was the rate of decline in homicides by rifles and shotguns:

The long gun registry went into effect in 2001. However, if you look at the stats, rifle and shotgun murders were already in a steep decline leading up to the registry being enacted. In fact the drop is far more significant in the years preceding.

And yet the Lefties want us to believe that the registry is important and money should be spent on it even if the rate of decline in long gun murder has slowed down ever since.

Now compare this to the Lefties and their attack on the Harper government's plans to spend more money on prisons. Of course they're using every chance they can to play the US boogeyman card. But their main bone of contention is that crime is decreasing, so why spend more money on prisons?

It's interesting to watch the hypocrisy of saying we should spend more money on long gun registration during a time when long gun murder was already rapidly declining while saying that because the crime rate appears to be going down (though it's not even close to levels from 40 to 50 years ago) spending money on prisons is pointless.

Play With Fire, Get Burned

2011-04-12T10:28:00.005-04:00

By now, we are all aware of the leaking of the Auditor General's report on G8/G20 spending. We of course have the blowhards on both sides crying foul.

The lefties are convinced this report is a damning picture of what the Harper government is about and just another scandal proving so. Not that they ever needed proof of this; they've swallowed every faux scandal that has been thrown out since Harper took power, practically all of which proved to be false.

The righties are saying this report is completely worthless. As a draft report, it is not the final findings of the Auditor General and thus cannot be taken at face value. Mind you, even the Auditor General Sheila Fraser herself has cautioned the public against accepting this report and should wait until the real report is presented in Parliament.

Now, this whole brouhaha doesn't change my opinion of who to vote for. The timing and means of this release (along with the AG's warnings) tells me this is at best dirty politics by the Opposition and at worst outrightly criminal. That kind of move just affirms my opinion of Ignatieff as nothing more than an opportunist and Layton as the pompous hypocrite he is. After all, while the Contempt of Parliament finding by the Opposition causing this election is questionable, the releasing of an AG report outside of Parliament is by legislation a reason for a charge of Contempt.

But the truth of the matter is actually much more simple: if you play with fire, you're going to get burned.

Many Canadians -- including a slew of bloggers in the Blogging Tories blogroll -- were unimpressed at the scope of spending for the G8/G20 summit. The largesse was unfathomable and quite simply reckless. If you don't think so, just look at how many Blogging Tories are screaming from their roofs over Michael Ignatieff and Jack Layton's spending promises.

As any true fiscal conservative knows, the bigger the government initiative, the greater chance for waste and/or error. And also the bigger the chance for pork-belly spending. Whether or not this erroneously leaked report -- I won't call it the AG's report since it was not released by and is not being endorsed by her -- turns out to be a true representation of her findings, the simple fact is that this is simply a matter of the chickens coming home to roost.

Maybe Harper should use this as a lesson and take a long look in the mirror asking himself what he really believes in regarding government spending.

But I -- and I'm sure many people who warned about the G8/G20 spending -- also can't help but say... I told you so.

Backwards Logic = Backwards Morality

2011-04-01T18:05:00.004-04:00

Honestly, how messed up does your morality have to be to think that taking less away from somebody equates to a handout?

Or how insane does somebody have to be to think that lowering corporate taxes is actually taking money away from somebody else?

Perhaps that explains our "progressive" justice system...

Victim: That man has taken money out of my pocket time and again!

Thief: Your honour, the last time I took money from his pocket I took less than before.

"Progressive" Judge: Then obviously you were handing money out. Case dismissed!

Destroying the Illusion of Wealth Redistribution

2011-03-31T18:10:00.002-04:00

Saw this video through the NewsBusters.org Facebook page. Absolutely brilliant outline of why wealth redistribution does not work.

19 point lead today... gone tomorrow

2011-03-24T23:23:00.002-04:00

A lot of folks on the Blogging Tories are of course ecstatic about the prospect that the Conservatives are polling 43%, a whopping 19 points ahead of the Liberals. This puts the Conservatives into majority territory.

But let's not forget what happens every single time we see one of these polls.

Next week another poll will come out dropping the Conservatives down to 37 to 38% and the media will say the Conservatives must have lost the faith of the Canadian public. I'm sure Frank Graves over at Ekos is doing his own completely unbiased polling which will place the Liberals much higher and the Conservatives much lower.

After all, he has to give Jane Taber something to drool over when she interviews him next.

So, let's not get too hasty here. The election hasn't been called yet and there's a lot of ink to be spilled / pixels to be cycled before a vote even takes place. I certainly won't hide my preference of a Conservative majority government. And I think most Canadians are going to consider voting for the Conservatives if only to end the bothersome trips to the polling booth that the Opposition never seems to tire of.

Pat Martin: The MP Who'd Ignore You

2011-03-21T00:13:00.003-04:00

It was really interesting to watch the videos that Hunter at Climbing Out of the Dark assembled showing the disgraceful antics of the Opposition members last week during the witch hunt... er... Commons Committee pretending to investigate whether Bev Oda attempted to mislead Parliament. Discussions of Bev Oda's actions has become completely nauseating; during the committee NDP MP Pat Martin stated several times that how she operates is a "terrible way to conduct business."

Unfortunately for him, in accusing her he displayed how he chooses to deal with requests he doesn't like: he ignores them.

If you go to Hunter's video titled NDP MP Pat Martin Jumps The Shark and skip over to 7:25 you'll hear him describe what he would rather she have done stating, "Why didn't you just not sign it... you could have avoided all this controversy by letting it die... letting it gather dust... never deal with the damn thing."

Well, isn't that an interesting insight into the mind of Pat Martin?

I wonder what his constituents would say if they were to find out that when Pat Martin doesn't want to deal with requests of his office -- what for actual ministers is official government business -- he feels it acceptable to just ignore them?

His ridiculous and despicable antics aside, if you compare the methodology that Bev Oda employed in this situation -- a methodology that the Tories have shown to be standard practice -- to Pat Martin's preference of just ignoring requests made of the government, clearly Pat Martin is the one displaying a complete lack of professionalism.

He sure raised a stink in the committee about MP's not having the option of being silent or as he put it pleading the fifth (note to Mr. Martin: Canada doesn't have a fifth amendment). And yet he feels it acceptable for MP's to ignore requests?

If this is how the NDP would run government, thank God they never will.

Iffy doesn't get it either

2011-03-16T12:11:00.005-04:00

So, Michael Ignatieff has jumped into the fray over Justin Trudeau's gap in judgement having complained over honour killings and other cultural violence against women being called 'barbaric'. And what does Iffy say?

"There's no such thing as an honour killing..."

Really Iffy? No such thing?

I wonder what the Liberals would say if somebody came saying something like... oh, I don't know... there's no such thing as a hate crime?

I imagine if the Conservative Party were to say something like this, they would be crucified by the media for ignoring violence against women. I don't anticipate the Liberals facing as much scrutiny over diminishing the reality of cultural violence against women.

Justin Trudeau says he was employing "responsible neutrality" in his comments. Sorry, Justin, but I have a hard time being neutral in the face of women being killed by their fathers or brothers over not being subservient to their wishes... or women facing genital mutilation... or women being forced into marriage.

And not making it perfectly clear to new Canadians how completely unacceptable such behaviour is is not responsible in any way.

Libya, with all your wisdom... teach us how to treat human beings

2011-03-02T10:42:00.004-05:00

To them, Rwanda and Darfur was just a dream.

They condemn Israel for targeting vile murderers who lob rockets indiscriminately into schoolyards.

They expect countries like Iran to cease nuclear programs and send their demands on notes dotted with hearts.

But Libya? Here's a country that blows up civilian gathering places in Germany. They conspire to blow up civilian aircraft over Scotland. They shoot their own citizens when the citizens demand freedom.

And yet the United Nations was just a hop, skip and a jump (translation: two weeks) away from praising Libya and sending accolades for "the country’s commitment to upholding human rights on the ground.”

Is it just me or does it make more sense to believe the world is flat than believe the UN is anything but a complete and utter joke that has become completely irrelevant to modern times?

Their stances in the face of genocide, ethnic cleansing, human rights violations, fraud to direct environmental policy, nuclear proliferation... is there nothing this organization can't get wrong?

When a machine has broken down so drastically, when a building is rotting to the foundation, when a bridge from where we are to where we want to be is buckling and rattling at every rivet, it's time to face the truth: it makes more sense to tear down and rebuild than to continue throwing up patchwork repairs, adding weight to a structure that has no more stability than a house of cards.

MSNBC Wrong to Can Olbermann

2011-01-24T15:07:00.003-05:00

Back in November, MSNBC suspended its mouthpiece in general Keith Olbermann for having donated funds to the Democrats. And as of last week, he abruptly "parted ways" with the broadcaster after nearly 8 years of his vitriolic hate.

My opinion: MSNBC was wrong.

Now, don't get me wrong. I can't stand Olbermann. Here's a guy who tilts the scales so far to the left that anybody on the right ends up at the top point of 90-degree angle. He has been given a pass on manipulating the truth, being completely unjust in his reporting of the news and spewing some of the most hate-filled, vitriolic venom I've ever heard.

But he has every right to donate to whomever the hades he wants!

Isn't it the right of free citizens to have our opinions represented in the political process? Isn't it the right of free market capitalists (I know, he hardly counts) to spend our money on anything we want?

(*note: those were rhetorical questions in case you thought there was another answer)

I think that MSNBC has done itself a great disservice on the reason for forcing Olbermann out; whether he was fired or he quit we'll never really know. They had every right to fire him for being unprofessional as a reporter. They had every right to fire him for manipulating the truth and painting innocent people (i.e. the Tea Party) as racists or complicit in the Tucson shootings.

But firing somebody because they are exercising their democratic and free capitalist rights? Talk about a pathetic excuse.

Just when you though MSNBC couldn't prove itself to be any more screwed up... they surprise you yet again.

The Thirteenth Step is a Soother

2010-12-17T16:56:00.004-05:00

So, addiction researchers at the University of Victoria are suggesting that the price on booze should be raised to curtail the drinking of those working class citizens who pay for it but that governments should give away booze to homeless people.

Seriously... you cannot make this crap up.

Yeah. Because people who are stable enough to hold down jobs, house and clothe them and their families need to be protected from themselves. But people who are addicted, refuse to get help in order to improve their lives and are generally unstable? They need their addictions further enabled.

Is it not glaringly obvious the level of hypocrisy in this two pronged suggestion?

If anybody were to suggest legislating societal changes that would force homeless addicts to deal with their problems, they'd be crucified for insensitivity. But it's fine to legislate societal changes that force the stable amongst us to try and become angels.

I think the University of Victoria should suggest government brings in mandatory soothers for all Canadians. That way the image of our citizenry would finally match their intended reality.

The Communism Tax

2010-12-15T20:20:00.010-05:00

You gotta love MoveOn.Org and it's sheer honesty/transparency.

If there's one thing that modern politics has illuminated it is the fact that extremists like to hide in the shadows until the coast is clear and then implement their deepest fantasies as if it should be a self-evident life truth. The most recent example can be found in an enlightening MoveOn article titled Top 5 Problems With The Tax Deal.

(Cue scary music)

Since the age of Joseph McCarthy and the House Committee on Un-American Activities, the left has done its best to paint the idea of a Communist threat to the West as laughable and paranoid. McCarthy has become the boogeyman thrown up any time a center, right-of-center or far-right citizen has suggested that certain leftist policies sit in the ranks of Socialist or Communist ideology.

Now, I'm not one to jump around labelling leftists as Commies. In fact, I don't think I've ever accused the far left of secretly being Communists. But the aforementioned MoveOn article really goes to show how far the left has gone in its unabashed audacity to propel extremist ideology. Clearly, the intent on the part of this organization, founded by a leftist-loved billionaire who purposefully destroyed the livelihood of countless working class Britains, is to demonize the wealthy and exalt the perceived suffering and/or inequality of the working class.

(Yeah... the irony is hilarious.)

This attitude alone would be enough to confirm that there certainly is a tinge of Communism to the modern far left. But there is one thing that the far left (and increasingly the supposedly moderate left) has fought for that does more than anything else to reveal Communist ideology. And that thing is the Estate Tax otherwise known as the "Death Tax". There can be no clearer modern example that the left believes the state should own everything than this.

I think it's fair to say that most rational people believe business owners who pay:

income tax
sales tax
property tax
corporate tax
payroll tax
wealth tax
capital gains tax

...and the myriad other taxes out there over the course of their lives in creating, building and developing something of worth -- such a business -- have already paid their fair share of taxes to acquire that which is rightfully theirs. It was their ingenuity that resulted in the formation of a successful business. The resultant property is theirs. They've contributed to the well-being of others by creating opportunities for those people to earn a living. They worked hard to attain success and they should have every right to leave the fruits of their labour to whomever they choose.

The far left? Ehhhh... not so much.

As much as they try and deny it -- while simultaneously opposing broad-based tax cuts or creating carbon taxes on innovative, industrialized nations -- the far left firmly believes in wealth-redistribution. It's undeniable now. It is their clear and firm belief that those who achieve success in their lives don't really deserve it. No, the people who deserve it are the so-called under-privileged.

(And whether under-privileged by circumstance or by choice, the left really doesn't care because everybody's a victim anyhow.)

The Estate Tax is the clearest piece of evidence demonstrating that the far-left believes the fruits of success belong to the state and that the state can claim ownership over whatever it wants. In fact, the folks over at MoveOn.org have gone so far as to call the government not taking a percentage of the estate of the deceased a "millionaire's bailout".

Think about that for a second. In the eyes of the left, the government not taking your property is equal to the government bailing you out!

Communists believe that the government -- a.k.a. the people -- have rightful ownership and sole determination for the distribution of all property. You don't own a thing; everything belongs to the state. It can only be from that mentality that a person could delude themselves enough to perceive the action of letting your heirs keep that which you have built translate into the government giving these things to your heirs. It's absolutely mind-blowing!

When you combine this with the fact that liberals aren't as generous as tippers or that studies show conservatives to be substantially more charitable than liberals, the hypocrisy is rather appalling. The gimme-gimme attitude of the modern left is just another thing that confirms my belief that conservative attitudes towards economic and financial issues are far more logical -- and ethical -- than anything the left has going for it these days.

They don't have it in themselves to give selflessly when they see somebody in need. They'd rather the government take things on their behalf and redistribute it with them taking the credit in being "progressive" and "caring".

As I said, I'm not one to go around calling leftists Communists. But with open calls for an Estate tax that usurps 55% (read: more than half / the majority share) of those possessions which you would give your spouse, children, friends or whomever you choose, I have a much harder time not seeing a strong Communist element to the modern left.

It's because of this that I believe "Death Tax" isn't quite descriptive enough and there's a much more appropriate name for the Estate tax: the Communism Tax.

China's Increase = Canada's Total

2010-12-13T14:34:00.002-05:00

So, it looks like John Baird is once again taking flak from global warming / climate change / climate disruption / [insert next useless term here] critics. Again. Why? Because he happened to say the truth: all the efforts by countries like Canada to decrease greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are going to be pointless when placed alongside the increases made by China.

It's completely mind-blowing how climate change alarmists can keep a straight face talking about how there are no other options when it comes to "saving" the planet Earth except to stop our contributions to GHG... and at the same time they try and downplay the dramatic increase of GHG in China.

As if the Earth is going to hold different countries to different standards the way alarmists do.

Let's just look at the CO2 component of the GHG equation. Now, these are 2007 figures but we'll use them just to give an example:

Canada's total CO2 emissions in 2007 were 557,340 thousand metric tons.
China's total CO2 emissions in 2007 were 6,538,367 thousand metric tons.

According to the numbers, Canada's emissions decreased by 2% while China's increased by 8%. If we were to apply that figure to the 2007 levels:

Canada reduced emissions by 11,147 thousand metric tons to 546,193 thousand metric tons
China increase emissions by 523,069 thousand metric tons to 7,061,436 thousand metric tons

So, basically, the total of all emissions by Canada are barely above just what China increased in terms of GHG emissions. And yet the politico alarmists say that Canada is the problem in this equation?

I think these critics need to start looking at basic mathematics courses.

If China is allowed to do whatever it wants -- as is status quo -- just to maintain present GHG levels, every year a country the size of Canada would have to eliminate all of it's GHG emissions. That's just to maintain present levels. And yet the alarmists claim to want to lower levels back to where they were a couple of decades ago.

John Baird is right and these idiots know it. They don't want to admit it because it usurps their position as some kind of holier-than-thou moral authority. Too bad they don't realize that your average Canadian -- when given the numbers -- are going to see right through this and know that the alarmists are lying about how close to the edge we are.

Climate change skepticism is on the rise. With leaders like this, I wonder why...

Godwin's Law and Canadian politics

2010-12-06T10:58:00.003-05:00

It seems that Julian Fantino is under fire for equating the Liberal's tactics to Hitler's with his "Hitler theory". And rightly so. There's no excuse for drawing a comparison between anybody and the Nazis.

Personally, I think that Fantino is suffering from what I call the Michael Jackson theory: surround yourself solely with people who agree with you and you'll lose all grip on reality.

Of course Michael Ignatieff and the Liberals are jumping on this as some great offence deserving of censure. Talk about rich.

Mr. Pot... can I reintroduce you to Mr. Kettle, Liberal MP Derek Lee?

I guess it's okay for one of your own to compare Harper's suspension of parliament to the Nazi burning of the German Reichstag in 1933. No need to censure anybody there, right Iffy?

Perhaps both groups should familiarize themselves with Godwin's Law. This is another example of why people hate politics and thus never switch party allegiances.

Wikileaks as Judge, Jury & Executioner?

2010-12-05T17:25:00.003-05:00

With the new deluge of information released recently by Wikileaks, there has been great debate over how much is too much information. A friend of mine actually took issue with the fact that there were reporters who were criticizing the release of information.

Wikileaks appears to have focused more and more on the United States as time has gone on. And while they claim to have received a great deal of information, they themselves have indicated that they have only released portions at a time.

Which begs the question, why? If Wikileaks is so focused on releasing hidden information, then why do they hold back?

The one thing that seems to be lost on many people is the fact that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has an agenda. Wikileaks is like any other group that paints itself as selfless entirely non-self-serving; certainly the mission statement of Wikileaks may indicate one thing but the founders and operatives have their own opinions that they no doubt use Wikileaks to espouse.

One need only look at the released attack video and how it was edited. As has been shown, even the "full" version of the video that Wikileaks released had half an hour of footage edited out, footage that painted the troops in an entirely different light to the story Wikileaks wanted to paint. Clearly Wikileaks is trying to mold the story rather than just release information.

This basically makes Wikileaks the judge, jury and executioner in a trial by wire: showing the public only what it wants to reveal in order for the public to lean towards their own political standing. They claim to value free information but ensure that they only release the information they want while editing out any information that doesn't fit the narrative they want to establish. As such, Wikileaks is deserving of the criticism it has received.

Any organization that reveals information that puts people's lives in danger and sets international diplomacy back by decades but makes sure to edit that information that doesn't further their political goals? Their hardly angels.

Climate Change? SuperGod will stop it!

2010-11-20T15:57:00.004-05:00

I just have to shake my head.

First off, I'm a climate change skeptic. The evidence that has been put forth that humans are causing a catastrophic shift in the Earth's climate has more holes than it takes to fill the Albert Hall.

When you have systems that chart sections of Lake Michigan at being well above boiling and of course Michael Mann's "hide the decline" and you have a temperature monitoring system that fails its own basic quality controls, but with the alarmists not even acknowledging it? Sorry, but if somebody can't acknowledge even the most glaring mistakes, they can't be following the scientific method.

And the court of public opinion is swaying away from the alarmists' side to the more rational point of view that the science still needs to be ironed out before we destroy our entire economies chasing a measly 1 degree temperature correction. People are starting to notice how the alarmists' arguments are downright hysterical and that there seems to be a more calm, rational point of view amongst those who aren't really buying into the climate change catastrophe.

And then... we have people like this...

I'm sorry, but what the hell?!? Did I just hear that right? In one breath this guy talks about the "word of God" being infallible while quoting from the Book of Genesis and in the next he's talking about the dinosaurs?

This is why the left and political moderates don't take the skeptical point as seriously as it should. Instead of having scientific discussions to debate scientific issues, we have religious-zealot, government representatives arguing against science with anecdotal creation stories.

It's people like this who drive the whole climate change debate right into the ditch.

MTO Prerequisite: Fail an IQ Test

2010-11-16T21:23:00.002-05:00

It kills me how completely mindless the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario is. Bad enough that gridlock in the GTA has gone almost completely unabated over the past three decades, but now we have to deal with the McGuinty Liberals' obsession with high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes.

For some reason they feel that giving special privileges to carpooling vehicles is going to solve gridlock unlike, say, building new roads. And perhaps in a perfect world that would happen. Unfortunately it appears they have decided to throw common sense out the window simply because of the connection the term has with Mike Harris.

The final nail in that coffin: the HOV lanes being built on the QEW.

The QEW is probably the one highway most in need of more lanes. Anybody who has driven the QEW during rush hour dreads the next trip. What is basically a twenty minute trip between where Highway 403 connects with the QEW and then breaks off again drags out to a full one hour.

The brilliance of the MTO under Dalton McGuinty thinks that building HOV lanes is going to solve it. And perhaps Westbound the HOV lanes might work. But whoever decided that HOV lanes on the Eastbound QEW really needs their head checked.

The HOV lanes are being installed roughly where the 403 merges with the QEW. That's fine since any traffic using the HOV lanes will have the ability to get on at any time. The problem is that the HOV lane ends where the 403 breaks off of the QEW again.

The HOV lanes are on the North side of the highway.

The 403 exit is on the South side of the highway.

This basically means that any HOV traffic that is to use the 403 will have to cross over four to five lanes of traffic to get to the exit! This is going to have the effect of actually worsening the gridlock beside the Ford plant at the QEW/403 branching.

Seriously... do people have to fail IQ tests to get a job designing the roads for the MTO? I'd really like to see the look on the Minister of Transportation's face when he realizes the complete SNAFU his incompetence has allowed to develop.

U.N. Women: Un-Women indeed

2010-11-15T14:48:00.004-05:00

So, the United Nations has decided to streamline their efforts to support the rights of women by creating a new organization called U.N. Women. Documentary filmmaker Ami Horowitz (U.N. Me) has written an excellent analysis on this "it would be humorous if it weren't so tragic" situation.

It amazes me that people still exalt the U.N. as some beacon of civilization. With its consistent impotence in the face of:

genocide;
terrorism;
racism;
homophobia;
bigotry; and obviously,
abuse of women

...while simultaneously being one of the singularly most corrupt organizations in history, the U.N. is long overdue for a good, swift sulfuric-acid enema if it is ever going to amount to anything other than being a cruel joke on the citizens of the Earth.

The Co-opting of Remembrance

2010-11-11T10:36:00.006-05:00

Today is a day for reflection.

Reflection on the cost of our freedom. Reflection on the unconditional love of those fellow citizens who stand in the ranks of our military and put themselves on the line for those of us who do not, will not or cannot for ourselves.

And yet there are those amongst us who -- for one reason or another -- can't put self-interest and self-importance aside. Even for one occasion of such importance.

Put simply, they just don't get it.

These are the people who feel the need to co-opt every important message for their own interests. Whether it be animal activists who dilute the merits of our soldier citizens by distributing purple poppies to honor animals that died during war or peace activists who hold such self-importance that they cannot leave well alone by distributing white poppies to promote peace through non-conflict, something I'm sure every Holocaust survivor thanks the maker never happened while they were lined up in the death camps.

These activists clearly don't get it.

Remembrance Day is already about peace. Does the fact that ceremonies and our quiet reflections take place at the moment that the war ended mean nothing? It is already about the lives of all those who served and all that is protected or lost, whether man or beast.

Do these groups need another version of the poppy? Unless they are trying to draw attention to their activism -- which ultimately means they value self-promotion over self-reflection -- the answer is clearly no.

Our soldiers stand on a plane of citizenry that most of us will never quite fathom. Their families know all too well the cost. It is unfortunate that self-centered activists just cannot put their self-interests aside... even for one day.

Perhaps if these activists reflected on exactly what Remembrance Day is, they might just realize that the red poppy already symbolizes what their co-opt poppies are supposed to mean. This lack of understanding only turns their co-opt poppies into a exercise in self-mockery; turning a day of selfless remembrance into a day of selfish ignorance and obliviousness.

Lest we forget... Clearly some of us already have.

Philosophy VS Emotional Reactions

2010-11-07T21:03:00.004-05:00

I recently got into a heated discussion about whether hiding one's political leanings is in fact any part of one's political beliefs themselves rather than just an emotional response to the fear of public scrutiny. And it got me thinking.

Is it even possible to both believe that the philosophy one embraces is correct and should be reality but also believe that this philosophy should be hidden?

And I don't mean it should be hidden on a personal level because of one's own discomfort. I mean, hidden on a philosophical level in that the philosophy's very existence is dependent upon it being hidden... kind of like God must be hidden for faith to exist.

It seems to me that possessing political beliefs is completely separate of how one chooses to express those beliefs, no matter what those beliefs are. If one's expression of a belief were an actual part of that political philosophy itself, then we would have to have separate categorizations for:

Closeted/Anonymous

Fair-Weather

Begrudging

Active

Extremist

But we all believe that our political views are correct. That's why it's called a belief. If I believe that a free-market economy is the best solution to global economics, then I'd want to see it enacted. I wouldn't want to see it hidden. And in fact, I can't simultaneously believe that something should be enacted and hidden.

If I believe that a free-market economy is the best solution but I'm afraid to let people know, then anonymity isn't part of that economic belief. It's not part of that political categorization. Anonymity is part of who I am. It's a part of my emotional wiring and my response and is nothing more than the connective tissue between my beliefs and the opposing belief.

Or am I wrong here and it is possible that a person can both believe that something should be enacted while simultaneously believing it should be hidden?

David Miller's Legacy: A Bankrupt City

2010-10-29T09:14:00.006-04:00

I was speaking with a friend of mine last night and we were discussing different aspects of the city. With me being kind of centre-right and her being more to the left, we of course have different perspectives. She dreaded the arrival of Rob Ford while I am relieved that we have somebody with a unique and very ambitious plan for Toronto.

However, she took me totally by surprise in suggesting that David Miller had a positive, long term vision of the city and that Toronto is one of the better fiscally managed cities in Canada. She also indicated that Toronto's debt has been managed very well compared to other cities in Canada.

Needless to say, I was dumbfounded. While I didn't want to take her to task over this -- being well aware of the ballooning budget -- I decided to not say anything about the debt level until I could present to her the actual numbers. So, this is what I pulled up.

Toronto - 2003

Debt: $2.1 Billion
Annual Budget: $6 Billion

Toronto - 2010

Debt: $3.1 Billion
Annual Budget: $9 Billion

In case it doesn't jump out at you right away, these numbers indicate that both the debt level of the city and the annual budget post-Miller is 150% of what it was pre-Miller. And let's not forget that Toronto is now pulling in approximately $750 Million more each year with the new Land Transfer Tax and Vehicle Registration Tax.

And when we compare Toronto to other cities, the picture isn't pretty either. Toronto has the third largest debt per capita of any Canadian city:

Montreal = $8,274
Calgary = $3,843
Toronto = $2,671

This kind of lays to rest any discussion on whether or not Toronto has been well-managed. It's not like David Miller was mayor for 30 years; he was in power for 7. To increase the debt and budget size of the city that significantly in that short of a time... it's almost imperceptible.

David Miller may go down as the most destructive mayor the city of Toronto ever had. One need only look at his spineless approach to unions in capitulating to their each and every wage demand...

...his ridiculous approach to poverty and community housing by giving away property...

...his mindless approach to the homeless in not even trying to figure out who they are, how many there are and coming up with a concise plan based on real numbers...

...his approach to roads in the city that have left businesses in ruins...

...and his complete disregard of the taxpayers' money.

Toronto is in sore shape right now. Thankfully we have somebody who is ready to give the city the shock therapy it so sorely needs. Let's hope that Rob Ford is able to enact the changes he plans. Toronto is on the brink. If Ford can do for Toronto what Rudy Giuliani did for New York, we may enter a new Golden Age for the city. And if anybody has the cojones to do it, it's Rob Ford.

UPDATE * * *

As pointed out in the comments section, my debt figures in the trillions of dollars is incorrect. As it is, I was using figures from the City of Toronto's website in which they quote their figures as being in millions.

The gross outstanding debt in 2010 is 3,063,064 (millions). Clearly, if the base value is in millions, that number becomes $3,063,064,000,000 or roughly $3.063 Trillion. However, Toronto's gross debt is actually $3.063 Billion. That would mean their base value is in the thousands: 3,063,064 (thousands) = $3,063,640,000

I've correct the debt figures back to being in the billions. Surprise, surprise that the City of Toronto's finances are so screwed up that they can't even quote financial figures on their website correctly.

Why my support of Harper is on a razor's edge

2010-10-27T16:46:00.003-04:00

I have long believed in Stephen Harper. From the time he was the leader of the Canadian Alliance, I have long held him in the greatest esteem as a brilliant political leader with the intelligence needed to lead Canada away from the mud that the Liberal Party dragged the country into.

Unfortunately, my support is now on a razor's edge. And it all has to do with Julian Fantino.

It is my view that the Conservative Party is as much at fault over the Caledonia catastrophe as any other party. The Harper government has presented itself as a law-and-order party. It has brought in long-needed reforms. It has stood up to the lunacy of the farcical long-gun registry. And yet, it did not have the cojones to stand up to the rampant lawlessness and threats to our fellow citizens that has gone unchecked in Caledonia.

However, the actions taken by Julian Fantino -- from ignoring the rule of law, to blaming and trying to penalize the victims of violence to outrightly threatening the elected officials of Caledonia -- has been the most disgusting and disturbing action taken by a police official I have ever seen. I have nothing but utter contempt for the disrespect and cowardice displayed by Fantino.

The fact that the Conservative Party would welcome Fantino into the fold is like pouring salt on an open wound. In fact, that is exactly what it is. They have rewarded the actions of a man deserving of contempt. While Julian Fantino earned a reputation as a first rate policing leader, he pissed all over that reputation by ignoring his sworn duty and holding himself above the citizens who gave him their trust to do what is right.

As it is, I am at a crossroads. If an election were held today, I would still vote for Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party. But there is no way in Hades that I am going to donate to the party now. That money would better serve a victims of violence group than a party who gives a pat on the back to a man like Julian Fantino. And so long as the Conservative Party touts itself as the defender of law-and-order while turning their backs on the citizens of Caledonia, I will certainly not be rewarding their hypocrisy.

Toronto to Ontario to Canada: A Conservative Cascade Effect

2010-10-26T11:28:00.007-04:00

The victory of Rob Ford in Toronto's mayoral race certainly changes the political landscape significantly. Having a staunch conservative running the show in one of Canada's most liberal cities is a coup of the highest order. But it is the timing that could prove to be the most promising aspect.

As we all know, October 2011 will mark the next provincial election in Ontario. All signs are pointing towards McGuinty and the Ontario Liberal Party's demise with a possible takeover by the Tim Hudak lead Progressive Conservatives. The next Canadian federal election is set for October of 2012 though this could be overridden by actions of the official Lame-O-pposition.

It is the annual frequency of these elections that offer a certain degree of promise for supporters of the federal Conservative Party of Canada. If Rob Ford can withstand the obvious resistance he will face from Toronto City Council and build a certain degree of momentum, the changeover of the provincial government to a more conservative government could turn the tide in the options available to Toronto.

There can be little doubt that some of Rob Ford's more ambitious plans would find a louder resonance with a Conservative provincial government over the current Liberal one. And if Rob Ford can build a coalition within City Council to move his agenda forward, combined with both a provincially and federally Conservative atmosphere, Torontonians may in fact see this as a windfall of cooperation between the levels of government that has not been seen for decades.

McGuinty rams heads with Harper. Mike Harris had to ram heads with Chretien and Martin. David Peterson and Bob Rae rammed heads with Mulroney. Bill Davis rammed heads with Trudeau. To have three levels of cooperative, like-minded political ideology between Ford, Hudak and Harper... the promise is certain.

If Hudak takes power and works with both Harper and Ford, it may be possible to destroy the Liberal bastion that is Toronto and shift it forever to the right. Of course, this will all depend on the Harper Conservatives maintaining power until the next scheduled election of October 2012.

If they can do so and at the same time build a coalition of willing participants to change the Toronto landscape, Stephen Harper may be able to secure the majority that has eluded him thus far. If that majority is achieved with the help of a Toronto that begins to see the benefits of conservative principles in governance, there will be nothing stopping Harper from taking back those mandatory government political party subsidies that have been so difficult for Harper to dispose of.

We all know such a change of funding will ruin both the Liberals and the Bloc entirely. But more importantly, without this income, the Liberals may never be able to take Toronto -- or Canada -- back again.

Mayor Rob Ford... yes, it's official!

2010-10-25T21:06:00.003-04:00

All I can say is, thank the maker... we have a real fiscal conservative in control in Canada. And in Toronto of all places!

The city needed shock treatment and that's what it got. I certainly am hopeful that Rob Ford surprises everybody and is able to implement his seemingly mountainous platform.

More subways? Yes!

Less streetcars? Double yes!

Respect for drivers? Triple yes!

Councillors being held accountable for both their voting and spending? You better believe it!

And, uh... Mr Miller? Don't let the door hit you on the way out. Your legacy has arrived. And his name is Rob Ford.

Google Blocking Blogging Tories?

2010-10-25T11:21:00.004-04:00

Somebody mentioned this on another blog and I looked into it myself. Sure enough, Google is blocking access to a few Blogging Tories blogs. Doing a Google search I found they had a harmful site block on:

Blogging Tories

Stephen Taylor

Small Dead Animals

All on the same day. Coincidence? I don't believe in coincidence.

Seems like the official Lame-O-pposition supporters may be engaging in their typically petty games.

Tomorrow is the End... Hallelujah!

2010-10-24T21:52:00.003-04:00

Regardless of who becomes Mayor of Toronto tomorrow -- George Smitherman or Rob Ford -- I think the overwhelming majority of Torontonians can breathe a sigh of relief that the David Miller regime will be gone.

It is disturbing to look at Toronto today in comparison to where we were before David Miller took office. The city has become a dump. The roads have become a disaster. The unions have turned the city into their own fiefdom.

And the cost? The yearly city budget is now 50% larger than when Miller took office.

With nothing to show for it.

Not a single monument to the success of David Miller.

Why? Because David Miller is the ultimate failure. The only thing people will think of when David Miller's name is spoke will be the smell of garbage piling up in the streets.

Regardless of whether my favored candidate -- Rob Ford -- wins tomorrow or not, I will be able to smile on Tuesday knowing that David Miller is gone. Hallelujah.

Toronto Mayoral Poll Fabrication?

2010-10-17T19:24:00.007-04:00

I have suspected all along that the polls showing George Smitherman running a much closer race to Rob Ford were in some ways being fabricated to change the course of the Toronto Mayoral election. It appears that the Globe & Mail has finally given us some proof that something is afoot.

The Globe & Mail are reporting tonight that the latest Nanos poll -- conducted after Rocco Rossi dropped out -- puts Rob Ford's support at 43.9 percent versus George Smitherman's 40.5% and Joe Pantalone at 15%. According to their numbers, the "lion's share" of Rocco Rossi's supporters have migrated to George Smitherman's camp.

If you will recall, just a week ago, Ipsos-Reid pegged George Smitherman's support at 31% with Rob Ford at 30% thus showing a much tighter race. They even mentioned that if you take into account committed voters, George Smitherman's lead over Rob Ford was in fact 6%.

This is where the possible fabrication starts to reveal itself...

If we take Nanos' indication that most of the Rocco Rossi's support went to George Smitherman and apply it to the numbers from the Ipsos-Reid poll, we should in fact see Rob Ford polling in the low to mid 30% range with Smitherman at 40% at least. And yet Nanos shows that we are absolutely nowhere near that scenario.

Additionally, last week Rob Ford's camp indicated that their own internal numbers had him much closer to the 50% mark than what was being reported by Ipsos-Reid, a fact that NOW Magazine derided with their typical, black tooth grin. And yet, if we are to take Nanos' poll as accurate, it would appear that Ford's internal polling was in fact more reliable than Ipsos-Reid.

Which begs the question: what the hell is going on that the polls would be so ridiculously off the mark?

Let's remember that it was the poll Ipsos-Reid released on September 27th pegging Rob Ford's support at 28% against George Smitherman at 23% that convinced Sarah Thomson to bow out of the race and throw her support behind Smitherman. It was also their polling that convinced Rocco Rossi to drop out this past week.

So, we either have both Nanos and Rob Ford's internal polling being way off or we have Ipsos-Reid being way off.

If in fact Nanos' numbers turn out to be closer to the mark on election day, we'll know that Ipsos-Reid conducted two consecutive polls that were completely off the mark. Meanwhile, Nanos' numbers haven't changed much in the past two months. So, if Ipsos-Reid is closer to the mark on election day, we'll know that Nanos conducted two consecutive polls that were completely off the mark.

But they both can't be right. And they all can't be that far off.

Needless to say, I think election day is going to reveal a rat.

Voting Laws Don't Count For Obama

2010-10-16T10:29:00.003-04:00

So, it looks like Michelle Obama has stepped in it again.

Bad enough her Marie Antoinette trip to Spain a few months ago and the criticism it brought onto her as somebody above the common folk, now she has to go and break Illinois state voting laws by electioneering within a polling place.

Of course, some people are coming to the defense of this Harvard educated lawyer from Illinois saying that because she's the first lady and is "liked" that she should be cut some slack. Yeah... because you wouldn't expect a lawyer from Illinois who has helped out with her husband's political campaigns to know anything about Illinois law as pertains to political campaigns.

Who are the genius' who think up these excuses? I have some ideas.

But ultimately who really thinks that anybody would go after Michelle Obama for breaking voting laws? After all, we know how well the idea of enforcing voting laws goes with this administration.

Where's that vitriol now Olbermann?

2010-10-09T09:51:00.005-04:00

Can we put to rest any doubt at all that Keith Olbermann and MSNBC are complete hypocrites?

Oh, they scream at conservatives commentators who describe a politician as a "whore" and even put the word out there. But when it's an actual politician or his aide -- it has been reported the court transcriber attributed it to J.B. while leftist news organizations are falling in line with saying it was an aide -- calling her a whore, MSNBC has to beep it out of the story.

I doubt we'll hear Olbermann shouting down Jerry Brown over this... no, that would show principle. And Olbermann needs to take anger management courses before he'll show any of that.

(Hat tip to Big Journalism for catching this one.)

I, for one, am having a hard time believing that Jerry Brown himself didn't use the word. If you watch the video from the link above and listen to the audio recording you'll notice that the first time the word "whore" is used, the person's voice is higher pitched and has a little more of a nasal aspect.

But the voice is deeper the second time the word is used and sounds like it is coming from the same person who said, "I am going to use that."

There doesn't seem to be any question that it was Jerry Brown who said, "I am going to use that."

The fallout for this story hasn't even hit yet. But it will be interesting to see who gets in line. We already know that NOW has repeated the hypocritical stance it took with Bill Clinton and has quickly jumped to Brown's side after this.

The level of hypocrisy is simply stunning.

Fortune tellers join the rank of the unemployed

2010-10-08T14:53:00.004-04:00

Honestly... who needs a fortune teller to predict the massive political shift in the United States coming this November when you have Gallup?

Yes, folks, it's true. The "summer of recovery" has been such an overwhelming success that US unemployment numbers jumped from 9.3% in August to 10.1%.

I imagine that the Democrats will be inviting Obama out on the campaign trails less and less in the coming weeks. It's not even fun anymore watching the Dems going the way of the Titanic.

Where did all those mayoral polls go to?

2010-10-05T22:26:00.002-04:00

Is it just me, or up until last week did we not see about a poll every three or four days on who the next Mayor of Toronto was going to be? Every newspaper was spilling page after page of ink on this poll and that poll... Ipsos-Reid and Nanos seemed to be doing cycles around each other every week. And yet the last poll to be discussed was released on the 26th of September.

And now? Nothing.

Gotta wonder what the next poll is going to say when everybody is keeping their internal numbers to their own chests and the polling firms are quiet. Could there have been a dramatic turn of events? We'll know soon enough.

Freedom or Totalitarianism

2010-10-04T16:37:00.004-04:00

Another blogger posted an excellent article in the Globe and Mail titled: Are we sliding into a tyranny of good intentions? The article specifically focuses on democracy in general. However, it segues into another topic as of late.

A few people I know have asked me my opinion on the striking down of certain prostitution laws in Canada. Certainly there has been a great deal of ink spilt on the subject already talking about the morals of society. I got into a very heated debate on the subject on another blog where asking people to point out specific ways that prostitution harms society resulted in me being called 'self-righteous'.

Go figure... I didn't know that asking for evidence of guilt is being self-righteous. I thought it was called due process.

I was even called a moral relativist. And yet believing something to be bad and saying it's none of my business doesn't imply any morally relative position at all. In fact, my morality is absolute as my opinion on prostitution is based on my opinion of government in general: participatory private acts are of NO business to government.

Unfortunately, society has increasingly empowered governments as our caretaker rather than our employee. It amazes me how conservatives complain of the far-left's tendency towards a "nanny-state" and then turn around and cry foul when citizens are given the freedom to choose how they live their own lives.

Prostitution -- like any other actions in the sphere of personal morality -- is in my books not a good thing. Whether by tradition or perception of human value, it is a dirty thing in my mind. And many people hold the same belief. But does that give us the moral right to say that everybody must abide by our personal morality?

Hello, Nanny State.

Instead of taking personal responsibility for our own actions and being models and teachers of moral positivity to shape the world we want, we have once again empowered the government to coerce and threaten others into our own personal spheres of morality. Just like schools that enforce an adoption of certain eating habits, just as governments enforce the adoption of non-smoking for free people in private establishments (BTW: I don't smoke), we have once again deferred personal responsibility and freedom to an every strengthened government fist.

And as one of my favorite musicians, Peter Gabriel, says, "The more we are protected, the more we're trapped within."

Once we give away our self-empowerment, it is nearly impossible to get it back. And then we become slaves to both the rules we adopt and the rules that those we oppose adopt on our behalf.

It's always best to err on the side of personal freedom than totalitarianism.

What if Rob Ford was anti-immigrant?

2010-09-25T02:16:00.003-04:00

Since the first debate where Rob Ford questioned the sustainability of Toronto's infrastructure with the population it already held, never mind any further growth, rival candidates and media pundits have been shouting from the roof tops that Rob Ford is anti-immigrant. By extension they have also linked him being anti-immigrant to the idea that he is racist.

Now, anybody who listened to what he said without a preconception that Rob Ford is Satan in disguise and therefore everything he says must be of the most villainous interpretations possible would know that he was not talking about immigration.

But let's say for a second that he was anti-immigrant. The big question from me would be: so what?

I'm a thirty-something, English speaking white male. I grew up in Dufferin County but only moved to the GTA a few years ago. That makes me an immigrant. Could it be gleamed from the interpretation of statements that in fact Rob Ford would be a racist for thinking it was a bad idea for me to move into Toronto with it's problems in infrastructure?

Of course not. Immigration is not about race. It's about population. It's a numbers focused question not a race question. As such, even if Rob Ford was speaking in an anti-immigrant tone, then it could not be considered racist.

Anyone-But-Ford: only if Smitherman folds

2010-09-24T09:14:00.006-04:00

It has been the recurring chorus of the ever so unbiased Toronto Star that mayoral candidates Joe Pantalone, Sarah Thomson and Rocco Rossi should drop out of the race and let George Smitherman be the last man standing against Rob Ford. Today they reported that Sarah Thomson is in fact considering dropping out and casting her support behind Rocco Rossi.

The logic behind the Star's reporting is made that much clearer by the fact that Thomson is in fact 3 points ahead of Rossi. Yeah... you figure it out.

Still, the question does remain regarding how the other candidates would best defeat Rob Ford. The Star obviously has not thought this through past their unabashed slobbering over George Smitherman; much of the support for Pantalone, Thomson and Rossi would go to Ford if any of them dropped out.

In fact, as the Toronto Sun reports, 19.3% of voters' second choice is Rob Ford vs 15.3% for Smitherman. This makes it statistically impossible for an Anyone-But-Ford campaign lead by Smitherman to win.

If the other candidates dropping out won't defeat Ford, it seems to me that there is only one solution: George Smitherman should drop out now and lead the way throwing his support behind the most right-wing of the remaining candidates.

King George's camp seems to be the most entrenched ideologically. So, it is unlikely that his supporters would vote for Ford as a second choice. Moving politically left to right -- from him to the next most right-wing candidate beside Ford -- each candidate's supporters would more likely throw their support behind anyone but Ford which isn't true in the opposite direction of politically right to left. As such, if Smitherman and two other candidates dropped out and threw their support against the most right-wing of the remaining candidates, their supporters would likely see that candidate as the lesser of two evils.

Unfortunately for them, the closest thing to a right-wing candidate next to Rob Ford happens to be Rocco Rossi who is polling last at 8% of decided voters.

Ultimately, the notion of an Anyone-But-Ford campaign is simply another symptom of the rot in Toronto municipal politics. Any candidate who drops out of the race now to throw their support behind somebody else reveals them to be completely devoid of principle. They have worked hard with their campaign workers, their supporters and presenting their own vision for the city. To fold now shows a complete disregard and disrespect for all of these elements.

I can only imagine how their supporters would react if these so-called "leaders" they were bucking for followed somebody else and drove their campaign off a cliff. I know I wouldn't exactly be appreciative of that. And I can see many campaign supporters voting for Ford just out of spite for the disregard the other candidates are showing them, their ideals, their efforts and the entire notion of democracy.

***UPDATE***

As it turns out -- and I really should have expected as much from the Star -- the poll they put out is in huge disagreement with other polls. Hardly surprising when you look at how the Star is doing everything to skew every aspect of this mayoral contest. As such, their poll has shown a drop from the mid-to-high 40's down to around 39% for Ford.

I guess when you actually have a poll identified as being from "Toronto Star - Angus Reid", you have to know that they are polling for themselves and their ideals. Meanwhile a Nanos poll from the exact same time period shows Rob Ford's mid-to-high 40's lead as being rock solid.

The funny part of this being that the numbers in the Nanos poll -- showing Thomson behind Rossi -- are more in line with the Star's reasoning for Sarah Thomson to concede and throw support behind Rossi!

I guess when you want to pointless badmouth Ford you use your own numbers. But when you want to logically convince Thomson to drop out, you use somebody else's numbers. It's clear that the Star's poll is emotional and the Nanos poll is logical. And that's all you need to know to figure out whose numbers are right.

Unions: an expense in blood and money

2010-09-19T10:52:00.011-04:00

I work in franchise development. This basically means that when somebody is interested in starting up their own business, I help them determine whether ours is right for them and they are right for us. It is a unique type of franchise in that it is a consultation franchise so one doesn't need a building, office staff, equipment or overhead.

As a global franchise, people from all over the world approach us for information on how to start up a business. This affords me a fantastic experience in that I speak with people from all over the world.

Last week I had a very interesting conversation with a gentleman from South Africa. This gentleman is a successful owner of two service stations and has operated them for years. At the end of October the leases for his two locations are set to expire. But instead of making efforts to renew the leases and continue on in this business, he has decided to let the leases expire, close down operations and look for another business.

Why? It's very simple: unionization.

South Africa is an extremely unionized country. Since August, the country has been crippled by a massive civil service union strike with workers demanding a wage increase of between 8.6% and 11% as well as up to $190 in housing subsidies.

And with hospital workers being a part of this group, it has gotten so bad that the South African National Defense Force has been called in to protect union workers who have been threatened with violence for defying their union's strike position. Additionally, the hospitals themselves are now serviced by military doctors who are filling in for hospital staff.

South African hospital officials are also claiming that the strike by hospital workers is responsible for up to ten deaths for lack of access to medical aid. As somebody from Toronto, that particular aspect of the strike hits particularly close to home considering our own public sector strike last year and how a man died after slow response by Toronto's EMS.

For the man I spoke with last year, he simply cannot afford to stay in business. He does make a monetary profit through his businesses. But monetary costs aren't the only expenses in life. And the cost in stress versus the monetary returns are simply too great for him to stay in business.

As he mentioned, anybody who runs a business in South Africa is subject to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) of South Africa. This governing body is designed to settle disputes between labor and management. However, as is with so many far-left governing bodies (our Human Rights Commissions, anyone?), it is really just a farcical, rubber-stamp organization where people can claim victimhood with the tribunal going through a facade of a process so they can award the complainants whatever they want.

This man told me that many business owners in South Africa spend a good portion of their year in front of the CCMA tribunals just answering for non-stop complaints. And they're not even legitimate complaints. His own final straw was when an employee of his was caught stealing from him.

The gentleman fired the thieving employee and had him charged by the police. The thief was convicted under the courts for stealing. But the thief then filed a complaint with the CCMA who ruled that the business owner's actions of firing the man were improper. The CCMA forced this business owner to rehire the thief!

This is eerily reminiscent of the wildcat labor strike at Air Canada back in 2005. At the time, Air Canada was taking action against employees who had been swiping time cards for coworkers who either showed up late, left early or didn't come into work at all. The ground crew walked off work for four hours effecting several flights and thousands of passengers. In the end, Air Canada agreed not to take punitive action against these employees so they would come back to work.

Now, this gentleman from South Africa is getting out of business. He's fed up with the bureaucracy of dealing with organizations such as the CCMA and the highly regulated, paper-pushing South African government which makes starting, operating and even ending a business an insanity inducing process. He wants something where he doesn't have to worry about carrying the deadweight of employees who don't want to work or governing bodies who are more interesting in giving workers what they want than what is right or wrong.

It is frustrating to see the attitudes of modern day unions. They claim that they are simply trying to ensure that workers get "fair" pay and conditions. But one would have to be a fool to look at modern unions and actually believe this. It is becoming increasingly clear that modern day unions want equal pay across the board, no matter the position or duties, with workers being free to do whatever they want -- even not showing up -- as long as they can come up with a decent enough excuse.

A few years ago I was debating with somebody who is pro-union whether or not workers should all get the same pay. His logic was that if somebody gets a job and puts in a full day's work, he should get the same pay and benefits as anybody else. I asked him straight-up whether he felt that they should get the same pay as the person who started the business. And he actually said that he did believe they should get the same.

Talk about a true socialist!

It amazes me how far society has come in terms of valuing people's contributions. Somebody who begrudgingly comes to work, punches in at 9 and leaves by 5 on the nose and puts in the bare minimum does not deserve to be rewarded for their efforts the same as somebody who worked hard for years, saved up enough money to build a business, took that high risk investment of starting the business and has now created opportunity for others who wouldn't have a job if it weren't for his/her actions.

The value is not the same in any regard! The business owner is the one taking the risk. The business owner is the one creating a means for others to make a living. Of course the business owner shouldn't take advantage of their workers. But it is the myth of the union mentality that the natural attitude of a business owner is to take advantage of their workers.

Why? It's very simple: that is the only justification for the existence of unions.

But what of the opposite? What about workers taking advantage of their employers? Do we have safeguards to prevent this? Not really. If a worker wants to have their time card swiped while not at work, shouldn't the owner have a say on whether to pay this person for work they never did? If a worker steals from the employer and is even found guilty by a court of law, should the business owner not have the right to keep a thief away from his business?

Union-minded people don't seem to care one bit about morality. It's about money. It always is.

As society becomes more and more aware of the expense that unions exact upon society -- both in blood and money -- it is becoming increasingly hard for society to accept their prima-donna attitudes. One need only look at this year's mayoralty race in the largely leftist city of Toronto to see that people are getting fed up with union power.

People are starting to recognize that the value for service just isn't there and that unions have taken too much control. And it isn't just a local phenomenon. One need only look at Europe's reluctance to assist Greece in the face of their massive debt burden. Greek unions simply don't care where the money is or where it comes from as long as they get what they think they're entitled to. And this hasn't sat very well across the EU. Germany most notably is sick and tired of being the engine of the EU economy while countries like Greece rest on their haunches.

Thankfully with the freedom of news sharing that the internet affords, people are more aware of what is going on in the world around them and why. And as it becomes increasingly difficult for unions and their leftist apologists in the media to argue their points for them, the public is learning the true cost of unionization. And it isn't a pretty picture.

One can only hope that the tide turns and people can build businesses without the fears of being a target for unwarranted oppression from the government and unions. I feel sorry for the gentleman in South Africa I was in talks with. To think a person would build up two businesses and then just walk away out of the frustration of union control... he brings a means to a living for these people and they run him out of town.

It's truly heartbreaking. In the end everybody loses.

Pub owner suing Ford: his lawyer reps Warren Kinsella

2010-09-17T19:16:00.007-04:00

We already know that George Foulidis, owner of the Boardwalk Pub in Toronto, is threatening to sue Rob Ford for libel. Ford suggested that the process allowing Foulidis to renew his lease 20 years for $1.5 million less than he originally offered is corrupt. Representing Mr. Foulidis is lawyer Brian Shiller.

NewsTalk 1010 reported today that Brian Shiller also happens to represent somebody very familiar to Conservatives everywhere: Warren Kinsella.

And what is Warren Kinsella happen to be doing these days? Why, he's acting as campaign strategist for Toronto mayoral candidate Rocco Rossi.

What a coincidence!

Mind you, NewsTalk 1010 provided further information to say that it was somebody in Rob Ford's camp who recommended Shiller to Foulidis. But still... coincidence? I don't believe in such a thing. Especially not in politics.

If you eliminate coincidence, there are really only three possibilities here:

a) that Rob Ford's team did put Shiller onto Foulidis knowing that it would cast suspicion on both Kinsella and Rossi, thus eating up Rossi's support;

b) that Warren Kinsella and/or Rossi thought this issue could be used as another faux scandal involving Rob Ford in hopes it would drive voters away from Ford and actually were the ones to put Shiller onto Foulidis; or,

c) a third candidate thought they could take both Ford and Rossi down by having the lawyer attack Ford only to have his connections to the Rossi camp be revealed and orchestrated the Shiller/Foulidis connection, thus casting suspicion everywhere.

Mind you, I highly doubt the third scenario could every be true. Considering the limp-noodle antics of the other candidates, such a tactic would be far beyond the pedestrian brains of either them or their strategists.

Whatever way you spin it, Rob Ford is going to come out on top in the end with this story. As Sue-Ann Levy in the Toronto Sun has put it, the attention being given to this issue (a sole-sourced contract that went for $1.5 million less than what the leaser offered) only illuminates the ridiculous nature of how the city of Toronto is being run. And that only further bolsters Rob Ford's message of fiscal ineptitude of city council.

Of course, we must keep in mind that Foulidis hasn't actually launched a lawsuit. He is only threatening to sue Rob Ford. Personally, I can't think of anybody who would use just the threat of a lawsuit to control political news.

All sarcasm intended.

Lost track of how many faces...

2010-09-14T16:46:00.003-04:00

It seems farcical.

The Liberals and leftists are wrongly accusing the Conservative government of being cozy with US special interests while they themselves are cozy with US interests. (h/t Coyne)

All this not a stone's throw away from the left embracing and protecting another US special interest group trying to interfere with Canadian politics... with that group lying to do so.

It really begs the question: how does the left stay upright with their feet planted firmly in the mouth of both of their faces?

Who is Rauf to lecture?

2010-09-14T12:49:00.006-04:00

I was watching a clip on Fox News (shudder!) with Bill Hemmer discussing Imam Rauf's latest absurdities in telling Americans what is and what isn't holy ground. Hemmer had Dr. Zuhdi Jaffer of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy on the show and he really hit it on the head.

I'll leave it to his own comments as they are so very true:

I have to admit, that is about the best dressing down of Imam Rauf's nonsensical position I've heard yet. Rauf is using Islamophobia as a crutch to avoid having to address radicals within the Muslim faith. As long as he screams Islamophobia, the sheep will follow blindly to the abattoir.

Sure he was just quoting...

2010-09-13T17:16:00.004-04:00

It's such an obvious misunderstanding. I mean, quoting something that you aren't agreeing with? Happens all the time.

Seriously.

If I was trying to make a point about the Sun newspapers and I quoted something that instead talked about the people who read the Sun... obviously I wasn't referring to the people. I mean, the quote says nothing about the Sun itself so it's so obvious that we should draw a conclusion about the Sun.

What that conclusion is... who knows? I don't know what's worse: saying (even quoting) something that suggests people are illiterate or believing that people are stupid enough to buy such BS.

Maybe Ian Davey can quote somebody to answer that for us.

The Truthers are still out there...

2010-09-11T18:36:00.000-04:00

On my way into work yesterday I was listening to John Oakley on Talk640 and he had a guest who was going to debate any Truther out there. I didn't get to listen to that segment unfortunately as it would have been interesting.

I still can't believe that there are people out there buying the nonsense arguments that suggest 9/11 was an inside job, that the planes weren't planes, that United 93 was shot down, that the World Trade Center buildings were brought down by explosives and the lot. Even the most well thought out conspiracy about 9/11 can be explained typically by simple facts.

If you go to YouTube there's actually a great channel with videos that disprove every conspiracy theory you can think of that has been presented to suggest that 9/11 was anything but what we all know it really was. You can check it out here: TheTruthAbout911

But, I typically refer people to a fantastic argument that was made by Penn Jillette on Penn & Teller's Bullshit! whereby he says it like it is: the Watergate break-in disproves it all. After all, if the government couldn't hide a simple hotel break-in, how could they hide a conspiracy involving every single layer of government? Check it out here.

And as I mentioned in a previous posting, if 40,000 top secret documents about the War in Afghanistan can end up on Wikileaks, how is it that we haven't seen a single document indicating any government involvement in 9/11?

Some people need to find themselves something else to devote their time to. Maybe looking for cures to mental diseases?

The Double Standard: Bibles VS Quran

2010-09-10T16:29:00.000-04:00

I was doing a little light reading today and it is hard to not see the glaring double standard of both the press and the Muslim world in regards to this week's Quran BBQ brouhaha.

In terms of the Muslim world, I found this great blog posting detailing how Muslims the world over frequently desecrate the Bible. (h/t Planck's Constant) I would like to hear the political and religious leaders of those countries blast the Muslims who carried out such acts.

Fat chance. Surely this is another case of, "Do as I say, not as I do." Muslims have no problem threatening violence if their holy book is burned. The Bible? Meh...

And in terms of the media, I don't remember the media or Obama coming out decrying last year's Halloween Bible Burning in North Carolina. After all, it's such an affront to the religious to desecrate the holy writings. The media would clearly not ignore this one.

Right?

Somehow I can't find a single mention of Obama decrying this clear desecration. I don't see a single article online from MSNBC or CNN that even mentions this. Surprise, surprise.

Where's ACTRA on the censoring of Sun TV?

2010-09-10T09:41:00.001-04:00

Last year the arts community -- especially ACTRA, the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists -- came down hard on Stephen Harper's government Bill C-10 which would in part effectively cut funding to artistic endeavors that were contrary to public interests. Some, such as director David Cronenberg, went so far as to call this censorship.

Bill C-10 in no way would prevent artists from creating, displaying or performing their works. It was simply telling them that they would have to get support from other sources. That is not censorship. If it was censorship then the government would effectively have a responsibility to fund all artists on demand.

I'm an artist. And I get it.

But where is ACTRA and all these arts community figures now that Sun TV (erroneously called "Fox News North") is under attack by the media on all sides? Where is the arts community when we have so many people calling for this private, non-public funded news outlet to be prevented access to the airwaves?

From Wikipedia: "Censorship is the suppression of speech or other communication which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the general body of people as determined by a government, media outlet, or other controlling body."

Censorship is not the denial of funding from one source. It is suppression. No artist was being suppressed from performing or creating under Bill C-10. Sure they would have to find alternate sources to create their artistic works at the level of expense that would be optimum. But that's not suppression.

Suppression is when we have the media demanding a voice to be silenced. Suppression is when we have politicians wanting voices to be silenced.

And what has the arts community said against these expressions of desired censorship? Well, I'm more likely to hear the birds chirping outside ACTRA's downtown headquarters while standing beside one of Emirates A-380's when taking off on a runway at Toronto's Pearson airport than hear one of their representatives on TV defending Sun TV's free expression.

Why? Because they aren't the champions against censorship they claim to be.

Hypocrites.

Could the Quran BBQ get any worse? You better believe it!

2010-09-10T00:08:00.000-04:00

Earlier today word came down that Rev. Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center had backed down from his plans to roast the Quran on the anniversary of 9/11. For many people this is a positive development. It certainly was for me.

But you always have to read the fine print. And the whole series of activities that led to Rev. Jones' announcement today stinks.

Rev. Jones met with FBI officials today for half an hour of conversations. About what? Nobody's saying. Not Rev. Jones, not the FBI. Why not?

If the FBI was simply reiterating what everybody else has been saying about intolerance, insensitivity or the threat of violent activities in reaction to Jones' plans, there wouldn't be any reason to be secretive. And that leaves really only two realistic possibilities.

The first is that the FBI was informing Rev. Jones of a potential threat to his own life or other specific parties involved in the book burning. With general threats of violence already known, the only possible violent threats that might sway Jones would be specific, close and personal.

I don't buy it. If there were some eminent threat against Rev. Jones, he would be screaming it to every camera out there as an example that proves his point of view surrounding Islam being a violent religion. He'd want the public to know and the FBI would not be able to stop him.

The other option is that the FBI itself is coercing Rev. Jones into not taking action. This would not surprise me considering the man pulling the FBI's strings -- President Barack Obama -- himself has heavily criticized Rev. Jones' actions and given every indication of what he wants.

What kind of threat the FBI would make is anybody's guess. But the far left has criticized the FBI for supposed pressure tactics going all the way back to the Hoover years. Does it seem likely that the FBI is incapable? Hardly.

Now, some will point out the apparent deal to move the New York Park51 development that Rev. Jones trumpeted first between himself and the Park51 developers -- who denied it -- and later with Florida Imam Muhammad Musri -- who also denied any deal. In the face of both parties denying what Rev. Jones claims, Jones has stated that he was lied to but was still postponing the Quran burning until he can talk to these parties.

But who really believes that Rev. Jones -- who himself has called Islam the devil's religion -- would remain in a holding pattern based on what he has now called a lie only so he can deal with representatives of a religion he clearly has no respect for and in fact has a great hatred towards? Does that make any sense whatsoever?

If I was just called a liar on national TV by a person I believe was evil but who I supposedly had a deal with a few seconds ago, I would be fuming! And if I was the type of man Rev. Jones is, I might have burned a Quran right then and there out of spite. But the reaction of Jones tells me that he has other concerns on his plate that lie outside the realm of Muslim representatives that he obviously has no interest in.

Considering that the only other party to put real pressure on him today was the FBI, the process of elimination on whose influence is making the difference is fairly simple. If true, it would be clear that the government -- from the top down -- has focused its sites on this US citizen to prevent him from speaking his mind or performing actions that he has every legal right to do.

The exact opposite of what has happened in New York City in regards to the Park51 development!

The whole thing stinks. The layers of hypocrisy on both sides of this issue is just about enough to make me throw my hands up in the air and scream, "A plague upon both your houses!"

But the completely lack of leadership on the part of Barack Obama and the US government in general is nothing short of pathetic. Seventy percent of Americans don't want to see the Park51 complex developed near Ground Zero. And instead of either bowing to the will of the people or trying to lead them in a different direction -- basically showing a little backbone and standing on principle either way -- Barack Obama has once again shown himself to be the indecisive, non-committal coward that he is.

He could have gotten all of these parties into one room to talk with a snap of his fingers. The complete lack of guidance on this highly divisive issue is the final proof that Barack Obama has absolutely none of the leadership or moral character that it takes to be a leader.

Once again, he votes present.

"Do as I say, not as I do."

2010-09-09T17:14:00.001-04:00

It amazes me that some of the same people who recognized the legal right of Muslims to build a mosque (community center... whatever) and said it was simply bad form and insensitive to do so are now defending Rev. Terry Jones and his Quran BBQ this Saturday, September 11th.

What does it say when we recognize the legal and human right of one group to do something while discouraging them not to do so out of sensitivity for others... but then turn right around and do the opposite to another group?

I thought we were better than that. I thought we were able to turn the other cheek. I thought we did unto others what we would have them do unto us.

Rev. Terry Jones (no, not the Monty Python comic) does have a legal right in the United States to burn books. And the left have certainly defended vigorously the right of people to desecrate sacred symbols so we're already well aware that he can do so. The question is, should he?

If you think Muslims should show a little sensitivity and not build near Ground Zero, defending Rev. Jones makes you a two-faced hypocrite. Nothing less.

The Left's guilt in the burning of the Quran

2010-09-09T07:53:00.000-04:00

It has been impossible to read the news this week and not come across the asinine antics of Rev. Terry Jones from Florida and his plans to burn copies of the Quran on the anniversary of 9/11. Thankfully most people -- including our PM Stephen Harper -- have spoken out against it as both intolerant and just plain stupid when one considers what the obvious reaction of the Muslim world will be.

And of course the left will try and portray this as just another example of how dangerous and bigoted the right is in general.

But let's not hold any illusions here: the left is responsible for this cavalier attitude towards religious symbols in the West.

It wasn't very long ago that artist Andres Serrano introduced the world to his Piss Christ, a picture of a crucifix submerged in his urine, or Chris Ofili rolled out his The Holy Virgin Mary, a mixture of the Virgin Mary, blaxploitation and female genitalia pictures and dung. And some of the more well-known figures in the left-wing community -- such as actress Susan Sarandon -- actually staged protests in defense of this desecration.

Sorry. My mistake. The left calls it art.

But where were the vast numbers of editorials deploring these exhibits? I do remember it being reported. Vilified in the editorials? A handful maybe. Vast amounts of media personalities endlessly talking about how shameful and bigoted an act it was? Not even close.

The media had ample opportunity to show principle in calling out bigots. They had ample opportunity to stand up and say that desecrating sacred articles is not only uncalled for but simply repulsive and inflammatory. Instead, they chose silence. Even though there was an outcry from the Christian community, they remained silent.

And we all know... As you sow so shall you reap.

The actions of Rev Terry Jones are in no doubt deplorable. But make no mistake. This could have been avoided if the political left had done the right thing all along and stood up against bigotry in all forms. The left could have stood with the right in saying that they will not stand for sacred symbols to be treated with disrespect.

For them to point fingers now is a little rich.

Voting Present on World War III

2010-09-08T19:30:00.000-04:00

Back when Barack Obama was still only the President Elect, he deemed it appropriate to call Iran's nuclear ambitions exactly as it is: unacceptable. And with nearly two years of talking about, conversing with and discussing in general we're still waiting to see exactly what it is about Iran getting the bomb that is unacceptable to Obama.

Perhaps everything up to Iran having a fully functional, tested and used bomb is acceptable.

But what about Russia?

In recent weeks Russia has decided that it will assist Iran's nuclear ambitions. This in clear understanding of Iran's two-faced "It's for peaceful purposes..." / "We have every right to build nuclear weapons..." stance. There can be no doubt that given the opportunity, Iran will develop nuclear weapons and will have no problem either using them directly or indirectly to target their enemies.

The most obvious side of this is that Israel -- now pretty much alone thanks to Obama -- will be forced to either launch a preemptive attack or in the face of developed nuclear weapons defend itself. In either scenario, Israel comes out looking bad. This gives Russia and all other anti-Israeli countries the perfect chance to come down hard on the Israelis.

But there's one thing on face value that doesn't make sense...

Iran is an Islamic republic which means that it will be first and foremost an ally to Muslim interests. Russia is presently engaged in a longstanding conflict with rebels within Chechnya, a largely Sunni Muslim population. It is no secret that the Muslim population within Chechnya despises Moscow. Even secularist Chechen rebels have been steadily converting to Islam.

Which begs the question... why would Russia arm the friend of it's enemies?

On face value, it makes no sense for Russia to help the Iranians become a nuclear superpower with the ability to launch nuclear attacks either directly or by proxy. One of the clearest targets of the Muslim population would be Russia itself who is responsible for what is perceived as Muslim genocide in Chechnya.

Now it doesn't make sense until you consider the possibility that Russia actually wants to be a target.

Now, I'm the first to admit that this has the obvious stench of conspiracy theories. But if you think about it, Russia is not happy with its status as a largely has-been superpower. The Russian government is not in a position to do en masse what it would do before, which is take whatever it wants by force.

But just as the United States had carte blanche to invade Afghanistan after 9/11, a Russia that has been the victim of a nuclear attack would have nothing stopping it from wiping out its Chechen foes. It would also have every justification to then invade Iran who would be seen as the face of the nuclear weapon itself.

Taking over both Chechnya and Iran, would certainly light a fire under every Muslim dominated country including the 93% Muslim Azerbaijan and 89% Muslim Turkmenistan. And any action by these countries against Russia -- either directly or through rebel activities -- would give Russia justification to invade both.

And that is the only thing standing between Russia having 100% complete control over the oil-rich Caspian Sea.

With Barack Obama being quite obviously a moral relativist, he would likely argue that Russia's actions in face of nuclear devastation are largely justified when compared to the United States' response to 9/11. After all, who could honestly see Barack Obama taking the United States to a gunfight with Russia? He would much rather find an excuse not to get involved.

But this of course would turn into a series of conflicts throughout the Middle East drawing in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and NATO member Turkey. And any attack against Turkey would obviously draw in the United States, Europe, Great Britain and Canada.

And boom... you've got World War III.

Obviously this seems hard to believe. But when you ask that one question of why Russia would supply the friends of its enemies with means to produce nuclear weapons, it all comes down to what opportunities it could present Russia. And having control over the near majority of the world's oil supply might just be too great a temptation for the financial strained Russia.

The only real preventative measure would be for Barack Obama to do something other than stand up on the world stage and vote present.

I'm not holding my breath.

It's a Wonderful Life: Or Why We Need More Billionaires

2010-09-07T19:19:00.000-04:00

Since I was a young boy I always admired Frank Capra's classic It's a Wonderful Life. As a moral and spiritual story it is without parallel.

It only dawned on me today of a hidden lesson in capitalism contained within a specific segment of that film:

I was thinking today about the central argument of wealth-redistribution: what does any wealthy person in the world need all that money for. It was an argument that I myself had considered as valid for the longest time. After all, it's not like they could ever use all that money in their lifetime.

Today the central conceit of that argument finally hit me. Rich people don't actually have all that money.

If one takes the reactionary point of view that rich people are hoarding vast wealth for themselves and not spreading it around, sure you could believe that one never needs that money. But I can't really imagine Bill Gates owning a vault that on a weekly basis he runs into, diving into the money singing, "Look at me! I'm so rich! I can swim in my money! Yippee!"

Of course not.

In reality, they don't actually have that much money in their possession. That money is in investments here, there and everywhere. As such, rich people actually are using all of that money. And not in a self-centered way. It is being used via investment groups or banks to fund other businesses which in turn grows the economy resulting in further wealth for others. And this reclaimed wealth allows more people to invest which results in further growth which results in further prosperity.

As amazing as it is to say, Billionaires are themselves a form of wealth redistribution!

It all relates to that one scene in It's a Wonderful Life perfectly, to which I will paraphrase:

"The far-left is thinking about this all wrong. The money isn't in the rich people's pockets. It's not hidden away in some vault somewhere for them and them alone. It's in your homes. It's in your employers' businesses. It's the means by which you yourself are prosperous."

Every time a rich person buys property and builds a new house -- no, an angel doesn't get it's wings -- they are in effect redistributing their wealth to the people who supply the wood, to the companies that build the nails, to the chemical plants that develop the paint. Every time they furnish that house they redistribute their wealth to the stores they purchased them through, to the manufacturers who built their furnishing, to the raw material suppliers.

And in effect to every single person those channels employ.

By having all of this extra money, Billionaires take very little out of the economy while providing the means to actually build and grow the economy. It's the very reason why government stimulus spending is ridiculously inefficient when compared to broad-based tax cuts. Rich people actually have very little of their money available at any given time. Most of it is being used to build the economy. To grow businesses.

Dare I say... to employ people!

Until the far-left finally realizes that being rich doesn't mean hoarding but in fact means providing the means for economic growth, they will have little positive effect on the economy. We need more billionaires if only so that they can use their money to build the world's economy.

God knows the government ain't any good at it.

It's official: Obama is insane

2010-09-06T14:01:00.000-04:00

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results." - Albert Einstein

So, you're the President of the United States. And there's a recession. You've just spent three-quarters of a Trillion dollars on stimulus spending and trumpeted the fact that you've saved 2 million jobs (translation: each job cost $379,000). The unemployment rate has risen from about 5-6% under the last administration to 9.6% under your administration even after this stimulus package.

The public disapproves of how you've spent so much, all signs indicate that the stimulus has been ineffective and you are facing midterm elections in less than 2 months. What do you do?

Well, if you were any sane man you would lick your wounds, admit that your approach has not produced the results you said it would and that you are going to retool your course and find a different approach. That's what any sane man would do.

Obama? Nah... he'd rather just toss out another $50 Billion.

Mind you, what he wants to put the money towards -- infrastructure -- is good. It's just that if he was going to do that he should have done it in the first place rather than wasting it on programs like employing non-Americans outside the US, build a firehall in an area that can't afford to hire firemen or weatherize homes to save $500 at the cost of $78,000 each.

It is as if Obama and the Democrats have a death wish. They have already damaged the ship with repeated iceberg strikes and still think that the path they are on is safe. And just like any gambling addict, they are sure that they are going to hit the jackpot soon. It's definitely going to be the next hand.

Okay, maybe the next hand.

No, no... the next hand for sure!

You can't spend your way out of an economic slump. It doesn't work on the individual front and it certainly doesn't work on the government front. Taking money out of the economy weakens the economy.

It doesn't matter if you as a government are going to spend that money because you're just adding more layers of bureaucracy between the money and its use. The public will either spend it right away or invest it with financial institutions who will reinvest it with others who will use the money again. Either way, the money will stimulate two or three economic activities before the government can even approve the spending for any single economic activity it would like to undertake.

But if your stimulus spending isn't achieving the results you thought it would, endlessly tossing good money after bad is nothing if not insane.

Free Speech VS Permissible Speech

2010-09-03T17:15:00.000-04:00

It is somewhat disturbing to see the cavalier attitude that the political Left has with the idea of freedom of speech and expression. Freedom of Speech is defined as one of our human rights which Leftists will scream to high heaven they are the defenders of and the Right want to throw away.

However, the Left seems to be the ones who are eager to curtail freedom of speech further and further. First they push for hate crime legislation based upon what people say. And we can see the result being totalitarian enforcement by seemingly all-powerful organizations such as Canada's Human Rights Tribunal. They even have no issue in demeaning freedom of speech as an American Value.

(I'm sorry... is that supposed to be an insult?)

Then we see the Left wanting to restrict what one can say politically. The current brouhaha over Sun TV -- or as propagandists and their enablers call it "Fox News North" -- has revealed the political left for the opportunistic hypocrites that they are. The so-called defenders of human rights have revealed their true intention to transform the concept of freedom of speech into a freedom of leftists-speech.

But speech is either free or permissible. One can either be free to speak or permitted to speak. Just like life and death, married or not married, animal or mineral, there is no in-between for free speech and permissible speech. If one is under political pressure not to speak, that is an infringement on one's ability to speak freely. And at the very moment that speech is regulated, the absence of free speech is created.

It's as definable as something and nothing.

Some people will of course come back and say, "Well, what about Holocaust deniers? Do you think they should have the freedom to deny the Holocaust?"

Uh... yeah! They should! How else are we supposed to ensure that our children know that the Holocaust is real and that there are morons out there who refuse to acknowledge something with insurmountable evidence? In fact, letting Holocaust deniers speak gives us the best opportunity to deny them.

Sweeping a mess under the carpet doesn't clean up the mess. It just puts it somewhere else where it can build in the dark until it's a much bigger problem.

I'm an artist which of course means I'm a little bit sensitive to the notion of censorship. In my view, there can be no greater error in society than to deny expression. Whether we agree or disagree, we cannot give up this right. In conjunction to the right to life, it is the most important right in that afford all other rights.

If we cannot speak, we cannot fight for our rights. And if our speech becomes subjected to any other's opinion, we have lost everything.

The Left should celebrate an entity such as Sun TV. Unfortunately, they have failed the first test of freedom of speech, that being respecting the right to opinions they would disagree with. It is impossible for any person to be a champion of free speech at the same time demanding the prevention of opposing views.

The efforts of the Left to prevent Sun TV is nothing short of utter hypocrisy. And it is truly disgusting.

To become President Sarah Palin

2010-09-01T13:11:00.000-04:00

First off, I am not endorsing Sarah Palin here. That is not what this post is about. This is about strategy.

Sarah Palin is a lightning rod for the American left. Every time her name comes up, venom. Every time she appears, venom. Every time it is suggested she could run for president, there is a storm of fire and brimstone of biblical proportions from the left-wing media.

And it is for this very reason that Sarah Palin should not run for President in 2012.

Which begs the question, what am I talking about in terms of Sarah Palin actually being President?

It's simple: the long game.

Stephen Harper has shown how sometimes it is not the short game that guarantees victory but rather a long, strategic chess game that runs your opponents into the ground via their own efforts. Harper has been a master in giving the Liberals enough rope to hang themselves. As such, Sarah Palin may in fact be the perfect game changer from the same fold.

There is little doubt anywhere that November is going to be bad for the Democrats. They are polling worse than has ever been seen for midterms. The pulse of the American public is that Barack Obama has not only sold them a bill of goods but has done so by enacting policies that are so far-left as to be contrary to everything that the USA is built upon.

As such, Sarah Palin -- the only name that appears relevant in US Presidential politics -- has become the target. The Democrats are after her. The media is after her. They are using up all their powder to destroy her. And yet she has changed the outcomes of every US electoral race since 2008. She is a voice that people listen to. And the left-wingers know it.

My opinion is that her best strategy is to let the left use up their powder on her. Let them focus on her. Let them drive all their efforts towards her... and then not run in 2012. This will give her all the attention of the American public as the media will have driven the public attention to her in droves and she will have humbled herself by not running. And humility is a virtue that Americans respect.

This will give her the ability to shape the entire 2012 Presidential race and influence voters to vote for whomever she feels would be the best candidate. The media will have little credibility in launching an attack against somebody who isn't even running and it will dilute the message of their Obama-favored agenda. And if Obama is replaced by her choice for President, the US will respect her more than they are willing to listen to the media.

In 2020 when her choice for the US President finishes his/her term, Sarah Palin will be in the absolute surefire winning position of being able to run with little ability of the media to tarnish her even a little bit. Their powder for attacking her will be spent in 2012 and she will have used the focus on her to completely change the US perception of her.

And her winning the Presidency will be a walk in the park.

Of course, this is all conjecture. I'm not a political strategist. But from what I have seen in how Stephen Harper has gained more and more of the approval of the Canadian public in the face of widespread media and political attacks, all the while being Prime Minister... Sarah Palin using the media microscope to dilute their effectiveness all the while not vying for the top prize will destroy their agenda from the inside out.

This will give her the time to redefine the US public opinion of her the way Harper has amongst Canadians. That's the only thing standing between her and being POTUS.

The perfect business partner!

2010-08-27T19:23:00.000-04:00

My father forwarded me this article that discusses why there are no jobs in the US. And I have to say it is the most accurate description of what is going on that I have ever heard.

It always blows my mind how the far left think that the government is the solution to everything. It's the very reason why the Obama administration (and the Harper government to a lesser degree) believe that government stimulus can turn the recession around. At the same time Obama wants the Bush tax cuts to run out.

The snail's-pace bureaucratic mess that is big government is the least efficient means of stimulating the economy. After taking money out of the economy, they hold onto it, they take their time formulating a plan, they take forever fine-tuning (that being a delusion itself) the plan, they vote on the plan, they legislate the plan, they put the plan out to the different agencies who have to come up with their own plans on how to properly work the plan... with each level taking money out of the budget of the plan... all before any action is even taken.

While if you just cut taxes the effects are instantaneous. Either the consumer will spend more money that is automatically injected into the economy, or they will invest it in banks who will then in turn invest it directly into the economy in the form of either business loans -- which start up new businesses and thus raise employment -- or stock investments which provide funds to companies who will in turn invest it into growing their business -- and their employment -- which goes directly back into the economy.

Personally, I trust businesses to be better at running and growing businesses than any government.

The evil Harper government acting in secret? Oh... it's just McGuinty...

2010-08-26T21:36:00.000-04:00

Seriously... it's amazing that the Toronto Star even reported the fact that the McGuinty Liberals have been holding secret talks with the unions in an effort to make a deal with them that would help the Ontario government get out of the massive hole they spent themselves into. Would it be too much for us to ask them to hold Dalton McGuinty to the same standard they hold the Harper government (mostly in a paranoid fantasy sense) to?

Of course it's too much!

Anybody want to bet that McGuinty was hoping this whole thing would stay under wraps so that he could make it look like he pulled some magic rabbit out of a hat to fix Ontario's problems? I am not even going to pretend like he had any intention of letting the Ontario public (you know, his bosses?) in on the game until it was too late to know what concessions were made. I bet he would even have found some way to ensure confidentiality in whatever deals he made.

Because he's just like that.

And all those people who complain that Stephen Harper's government is the most secretive, deceptive and unaccountable government out there? I doubt they'll even bat an eyelash over this one.

If Park51 is in fact just a community center...

2010-08-23T23:14:00.000-04:00

...then doesn't that by extension mean that it isn't covered by the right to freedom of religion? I mean, there is no human right for freedom to build community centers.

I've seen far too many people who are arguing both sides against the middle that it is not a mosque but that if you oppose the building of Park 51 it means you're a bigot. However, if one side of the equation is right, then the other doesn't apply does it?

Either it is a mosque or it isn't. If it isn't, then there's no problem! We can even have the government step in, stop it from being built and nobody's human right of freedom of religion will have been stepped upon.

We all know that this is as duplicitous an argument as one can come up with. You can't simultaneously argue that it isn't a mosque and that denying it from being built is suppressing that right of people to practice their religion.

And to those who think that opposition to the mosque is a sign of bigotry and an attempt to suppress Islam, if you think that offering free land at another location is an attempt to suppress Islam... well... I see ignoring facts and reporting whatever you want to fit your narrative is actually quite the fad these days.

At least now we know whose reporting techniques you've been studying.

Something only Rob Ford could do.

2010-08-19T10:54:00.000-04:00

It was revealed last night that Rob Ford had claimed to not have been arrested for a drug charge only to reveal that he had in Florida. People jumped all over him for supposedly trying to deny or cover up this impropriety. He said he forgot.

The question became, how can anybody forget a pot bust in Florida? After his press conference this morning, his revelation not only made sense but is so very Rob Ford.

Ford said that the reason he forgot the dropped pot charge was because it was in a much more serious DUI charge to which he plead guilty. In that light, it makes sense why somebody might forget a dropped secondary charge.

Does it make Rob Ford look good? Not really. But it certainly takes the wind out of the sails of his critics and rival candidates that he was intentionally lying or trying to cover it up. And by revealing the other charge he now looks even more honest.

Only Rob Ford could turn a DUI conviction into a sign of honesty.

Pelosi joins Obama on the backpedal express!

2010-08-18T16:50:00.000-04:00

It's official: the Democrats are completely politically tone-deaf.

According to CNN, a full 70 percent of Americans oppose the building of a mosque near Ground Zero in New York City, the site of the 9/11 attacks. This isn't a right-wing or left-wing centered argument either. There is a grassroots agreement across the political spectrum that to do so would be a spit in the face of those who lost families in this tragedy.

Just don't tell Nancy Pelosi.

You see, many have questioned who exactly is funding the building of this $100 million mosque. However, House Speaker... sorry, scratch that... clearly outgoing-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's first reaction over this debate is not who is funding the mosque. Instead, she would rather investigate the people who oppose this desecration.

Of course, just as Obama was forced to do last week over his comments about the mosque, Pelosi is now quickly backpedalling to provide "clarification" saying she also wants transparency on who is funding the mosque. And of course, the usual suspects in the mainstream media are falling in line to provide the Democrats cover on this.

You feel it necessary to first call for "investigations" into opponents of the mosque but to call for "transparency" on who funds the mosque?

Sorry... Americans aren't going to buy it.

First off, investigation implies criminal or unethical conduct. To imply that it is possible that the opposition is based in unethical efforts is an attempt to cast a shadow on the opposition. Asking for "transparency" from the mosque builders implies a request for an inside view.

If Nancy Pelosi thinks American are going to buy her feeble "clarifications" she is in for a very upsetting November. Like her so-called progressive allies such as Obama who believe they are speaking over the heads of the riff-raff who simply don't understand their subtle nuances, Pelosi thinks she can just keep talking and it will be okay.

People are smarter than you look down upon them for being Nancy. But go ahead. Feel free to open that mouth again and insert other foot if you like.

Slavery by any other name...

2010-08-16T23:00:00.000-04:00

Next year will mark the 150th anniversary of the start of the American Civil War. Of course, slavery sat at the heart of this war and it is a given in these times that slavery was, is and shall always be a crime.

So, let's look at what slavery is.

Slavery is by definition the system of turning one person (a slave) into an unpaid laborer without freedoms or rights by another person (a master). In the traditional sense, the owner gains profit by imprisoning the slave and employing them into forced labor. The owner of course pays for the slaves living quarters, their food and their general welfare with the expectation to gain profit over time by their work.

Now, what would be the easiest way to make that process more efficient and profitable for the master? Quite simple: remove the need to house, feed and take care of the slave. The result would be slavery with little cost and almost pure profit.

This is where we find ourselves today with the arrival of hundreds of Tamil "refugees" on our Pacific coast. As many would have us believe, these are simple folk trying to make a new home. And from their end, that may be true. However, the more likely case is that this is a case of organized human trafficking with the organizers making millions of dollars in the process.

Unfortunately, this puts the Canadian government in a bind. Do we let these innocent people in as refugees? The unfortunate truth is that if these people were the product of a human trafficking operation, we may very well be inviting a repeat performance if we let them stay. In essence, allowing them to say may be tacit approval of what is for all intents and purposes the perfect slave operation. One with little maintenance cost and high profit.

Never mind that this case could be a part of a much larger Tamil Tiger operation. In fact, this is one of the ways they have financed their military operations in the past. To make no effort to rectify this situation is simply a matter of diverting responsibility in making a rational decision, no matter how difficult.

As much as I mourn the situation these people face, I fear for the many others who will follow only to become slaves in the process. Turning a blind eye to what could be a very profitable human smuggling operation is simply tacit approval of modern slavery. As difficult as it is, sometimes you have to amputate a limb in order to save the body. And in this case, to prevent condemning countless Tamils to the fate of being in eternal bondage to the smugglers, we may very well be forced to make that difficult decision of turning this group away.

This is a very difficult choice for our government. But the right choice isn't always the easiest. And if we don't make a decision now, we are all responsible for the sign we send out of an open invitation for smugglers to abuse not only our charity but also the innocent Tamil civilians who will place their fate in the hands of these lesser men.

Is Toronto regaining its sanity?

2010-08-13T14:10:00.000-04:00

It was with significant surprise that I read yesterday how Rob Ford has slipped into a comfortable lead over all of his opponents in the Toronto mayoralty race. It is surprising considering how comfortable Torontonians were in electing the spendthrift David Miller over the fiscally responsible and always full of unique ideas John Tory.

Perhaps this is a sign of resignation of the citizens of Toronto after endless disruptions by the spoiled brat leaders of the TTC and the Toronto Civic Employees union that has resulted in transit strikes and garbage strikes and saw David Miller fold like a deck of cards every time. To put simply, Torontonians are fed up.

Now, I don't see Rob Ford as a knight in shining armor. I tend to find some of his views to be a little too far to the right for me. But as long as his more socially conservative views are not going to cause a ruckus or lead to ill treatment of minority groups, I don't see this as a problem.

Toronto's problems are fiscal in nature. Under David Miller's seven-year leadership, the annual operating budget has risen from $6.4 Billion $9.2 Billion almost a full 50%. This is as clear a sign of the utter ridiculousness of the Miller team.

And what has it gotten us? Ask any Torontonian what David Miller's legacy will be and most will have no clue. Ask any Torontonian what major changes happened in Toronto since David Miller came to power and they are likely to give you windfall of negativity and no positive angles at all. From new tax after new spending after new tax, Miller has achieved the most epic of epic fails.

Make no mistake, Toronto is a left-wing city. The fact that the federal Conservatives can't make a single headway into the Metro core is a clear sign. As such, it is more likely that people aren't being drawn towards Rob Ford so much as David Miller's policies are driving them in that direction. They know that they were sold a bill of goods by Miller and his cronies who have achieved nothing substantial for the incredible increase in costs Toronto has seen.

As Kelly McParland so eloquently put it, David Miller's legacy could very well be Rob Ford.

Unlike certain places that refuse to accept that there is no such place as a utopia where you can pay anybody anything they want without taking in more tax money to cover the costs, everyday Torontonians have obviously recognized that you can't spend money that isn't there. And while it's a nice fantasy that unions should be able to pay uneducated trash collectors the same wage as some of the most trained professionals out there, fantasy does not bode well in reality and can usually kill it.

Here's hoping that a Rob Ford victory will find him actually able to implement the kind of policies that would save this city from its fiscal destruction.

Finally saw Inception

2010-08-12T10:49:00.000-04:00

I have been a fan of Christopher Nolan since sitting in a theatre and watching the opening sequence to his landmark international debut Memento. What I witnessed in that film was a brilliant mind giving an audience the unique experience of having the protagonist's short term memory loss. He did so by playing a film in reverse turning a simple revenge story into a whodunnit mystery. It was refreshing both in terms of storytelling but also in Nolan's signature style (i.e. flashbacks silently revealing the character's inner monologue).

Since then, Nolan in my opinion has been batting 100. While a remake, Insomnia was equally as compelling, Batman Begins turned the comic book movie on its head, The Prestige was a wonderful period piece thriller and of course The Dark Knight was his The Godfather: Part II sequel to rival the original. As such, many a talent have felt in trustworthy hands to lend their talent to any of his outings. And as a fan, I have come to trust him more and more.

So, when I first heard of Nolan's new cerebral sci-fi thriller Inception, I knew we as an audience were in for a treat. And while I tend to shy away from Leonardo DiCaprio films (I feel he's been overhyped) I knew that there was a reason Nolan chose him. As such, I trusted his decision and waited to see what would happen. This trust was compounded when Nolan also attracted Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Ken Watanabe, Marion Cotillard, Tom Berenger, Pete Postlethwaite, Tom Hardy and his mainstays Cillian Murphy and Michael Caine.

Having finally seen it last night, I can say that Nolan has once again earned my trust.

Inception is an entertaining, mind-bending thriller that is equally exhilarating and thought provoking. To say it is visually intense would be the understatement of the year. The film is stunning to watch taking one's perception of reality and spinning it around while still achieving a beautiful palette of color and motion imagery that masterfully runs between slow motion and frenetic action.

And it once again takes a genre and bends it around backward. In its most basic form, Inception is a heist movie in reverse. Instead of the characters trying to break in and steal something, they are breaking in to plant one thought into a person's head in order to alter his motivations and his actions. How do they do this? They enter his dream, construct a new reality and sink into his subconscious to find what could motivate him and make him self-realize the idea.

In this sense, there is not a stone that goes unturned and not a loose end left. Nolan has clearly thought his subject through a million times to make the film and the plot believable. It's not simply a matter of planting a thought in somebody's head as -- just like an invader in the person's dream -- the subconscious will seek out the foreign entity, reject and attack it. Thus, any world that is created in the dream state can be basically crafted but must have it's details filled in by the subject so they accept it as real.

Believe me... Nolan does not miss a thing in understanding the idea of dreams and how they both can be controlled by us and can control us. As such, he has crafted a film that is truly exceptional.

My only problem with the film actually relates to a problem I had in the Dark Knight. In the Dark Knight, the final climactic battle between Batman and the Joker takes place in a building under construction. During this sequence, Batman has to move between floors and rooms quickly in order to save hostages and take out the Joker's henchmen.

My problem with this sequence was that Nolan did not create a focal point to define for audience precisely where in space the action was happening. As such, anytime Batman moved between a floor or a room -- which under construction all looked the same -- it didn't seem like he was doing anything. While ultimately I understood what was happening logicaly, visually Batman could very well have been fighting the same people in one room or on two floors.

The same thing happens in Inception when Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character has to create a "kick", which in the film is sudden change in gravity that makes people feel like they're falling in order to wake them up from whatever dream they are in. At the time, the characters are all in zero-gravity (you'll have to see it to understand) and so he ties them up and puts them in an elevator and proceeds to attach explosives to the elevator in order to make an artificial gravity.

In this sequence, he has to move around the elevator to cut cables and attach explosives. However, while he is moving around and around, since there is no defined point in space, it is as if he could very well have been in one place for each shot. Of course, you understand that he had to move around the elevator. But visually it doesn't translate without a point in space to define where he is.

That is a very minor point of complaint and is the only problem I had with the film. Apart from that, Inception is brilliant. It ranks up there with Blade Runner and 2001: A Space Odyssey in terms of intelligent science fiction that makes you think long after you leave the theatre. And though it is intelligent, it is also thrilling to watch. As such, if you're looking to be wholly entertained while at the same time having something to think about, rest assured you'll love Inception.

As far as I'm concerned, Inception is the best film this year so far.

Just what the Toronto Star needs...

2010-08-11T11:20:00.000-04:00

...a twice weekly dose of the ever nasty, unprofessional and immature Heather Mallick.

How anybody can even consider the Toronto Star anything more than a propaganda factory is beyond me. The fact they have no problem employing a hack with a complete lack of professional journalistic standards is beyond me.

It's too bad we don't have a news outlet in Canada that would hold Mallick and her ilk to task for the outrageousness she spews. At least, not yet anyhow.

Is Rob Ford not exactly what the Gay community wants?

2010-08-07T09:43:00.000-04:00

I support gay marriage. For the longest time I did not. But it had nothing to do with being against homosexuality. Far from it... I have many friends who are gay and I see nothing wrong with who they are and the life they lead. They are amongst the most beautiful of human beings.

My stance against gay marriage was based on the fact that marriage has always been a union of a man and a women to be husband and wife. I didn't feel that this definition was an affront to the homosexual community. It was simply a word/term/condition that had been used to define a specific bond between two groups.

And there was nothing to stop the homosexual community from coming up with a term to describe their own unions. Just because the name would be different would not mean that it was less than marriage. After all, we have priests, rabbis and imams, all performing the same functions in society but each with a different name based on the community they were a part of.

With time my views changed and I felt that there simply wasn't enough of a reason not to extend marriage to be the union of two people -- whether heterosexual or homosexual -- in an exclusive bond. And I have been witness to some very logical arguments that outline why even conservatives should not only accept gay marriage but in fact embrace it as a sign homosexuals embrace what are defined as long standing conservative values.

That said, not everybody supports that view. And that is their right. Until we live in a socialist or religious extremist dictatorship where every thought must be authorized by the state, people are allowed to believe what they want or think what they want so long as they do not partake in actions that harm other individuals. I don't want to live in a world where there is no freedom of thought, belief or expression.

Which brings us to the present brouhaha surrounding Rob Ford and his views on gay marriage...

Rob Ford supports the traditional definition of marriage being that of a union between a man and a woman. When mayoral candidate Wendell Brereton dropped out of the race this week and threw his support behind Rob Ford, their views on homosexual unions came to the forefront of media attention. And of course the opportunistic media and other self-serving candidates are swooping in on Rob Ford like carrion for their own political goals.

However, Rob Ford qualified his views stating that gay marriage is not something he even cares to focus on and is outside of his scope, specifically saying, "To each their own... I'm not worried about what people do in their private life, I look out for taxpayer's money." And he's right. The Mayor of Toronto has no control over who can and cannot get married and cannot put laws in place that harm the homosexual community. The dominion of the courts prevent it. As such, Rob Ford's views will not affect the homosexual community at all.

But it does raise an important question...

If Rob Ford holds views that run counter to the homosexual community but has no interest in doing anything against them, is that not the very definition of tolerance? And if so, would Rob Ford not be the very icon of what the homosexual community could hope for in a conservative politician? After all, what better example of tolerance could there be than a man who does not support same-sex marriage but does not lash out at the gay community?

The political left and the gay community have fought for tolerance for decades. Well... guess what? That's exactly what Rob Ford is the icon of.

The real question is, does tolerance run both directions? If Rob Ford can be against the views of the homosexual community but have no interest in taking action against them, is it possible for the homosexual community be against the views of Rob Ford and not take action against him?

I'm not saying that Rob Ford is the ideal candidate. There are many reasons not to vote for him. But, contrary to the popular opinion that his views on same-sex marriage should make him a pariah to the homosexual community, I think the homosexual community would in fact be missing a fantastic opportunity in embracing him.

I could not think of a better way to show the world what tolerance is than to have a mayor who does not share the moral views of homosexuality but is tolerant of the gay community... and a gay community who does not share the moral views on homosexuality that the mayor does but is tolerant of him.

Is it really all that surprising?

2010-08-03T23:54:00.001-04:00

Considering the media and the Opposition slammed Helena Guergis over criminal culpability until the Conservatives had no choice but to expel her only to have the same hypocrites come back and criticize the government for doing exactly what they wanted, is it really all that surprising that we are now finding out that the famous "meltdown" which started this whole fiasco is now being shown to have no legs?

The two-faced nature of Canadian politics -- both from the NDP/Liberal/Bloc coalition and the media -- is ridiculously out of control. And the media just pretends it isn't involved half the time in stirring up the storms of controversy just to watch them go.

I find it hard to believe that after all this time that security footage is only now being brought to light. At best this reeks of lazy journalism while at worst it is gotcha journalism to the extreme. I miss the day that reporters actually researched rather than just throwing out opinion pieces, rumors and innuendo.

The Echo Chamber Repeats the Echo Chamber Repeat

2010-07-31T15:31:00.000-04:00

"The only thing more expensive than education is ignorance." - Benjamin Franklin

If there is any one argument for the creation of Sun TV -- a.k.a. in Canada "FOX News North" -- it is the one-message pipeline that is the Canadian media. There have been endless incidents of North American news items the Canadian media has reported on without either context or clarity.

One simply need look at the reporting of the proposed Arizona immigration law that would allow Arizona police to request proof of citizenship. The Canadian media has reported much of the accusations of racism and have echoed the left-wing propaganda that this offers Arizona police carte-blanche to stop anybody for any minor offense and grill them on their race... er, sorry... nationality.

And yet those who do not simply swallow what the Canadian news or the left-wing mainstream media forces down our throats know that the Arizona law is in fact less arbitrary than the federal law that has been in place for decades.

But have we heard a single Canadian news organization speak of this more than in passing? Are you kidding?

And in Canada it is no different. In fact, I'm quite inclined to believe that the journolist fiasco that is brewing in the USA is probably already a well established entity in Canadian media circles. After all, how many times have we read an article that criticizes the Harper government for some small, insignificant and not particularly note-worthy issue only to find that the same day you could throw a stone and hit a dozen other media figures who just happened to be touting the same nothing story?

If anything, an alternative source for news that skews the left-leaning mainstream media in this country should be welcomed by all Canadians. After all, we can only better ourselves by challenging our beliefs, no matter how well-informed we believe we are. Because without a view from the other side, one simply cannot be well-informed at all.

One can only be ignorant.

If the Afghanistan Wikileaks prove anything...

2010-07-30T00:37:00.001-04:00

...it's that conspiracy theorists are really going to have to stretch their imagination to keep believing that 9/11 was an "inside job".

After all, if 90,000 secret documents about a war that was started during the Bush administration can so easily get leaked to an online gossip mill, you'd think we'd have seen at least 1 document indicating that the US government staged 9/11 as well... you think?

I certainly won't miss Mr. Margolis... not in the least.

2010-07-24T20:25:00.001-04:00

Eric Margolis always struck me as somebody who is certainly intelligent but unfortunately also willfully blind to facts in order to maintain his well-documented position.

Case in point, last week I was listening to the John Oakley show on AM640. Mike Stafford is presently sitting in for John and was interviewing Eric about the whole Omar Khadr/Guantanamo Bay affair. Eric was certainly well-informed about many aspects of Omar Khadr's path to imprisonment. He even claimed to have met Omar's father Ahmed Said Khadr while Ahmed was still very much involved in aid-related projects.

Margolis sited Ahmed's relief work as being the primary reason he didn't believe that Omar Khadr could possibly have been involved in any resistance movement or military activities. However, anybody who has spent time looking at the news surrounding Omar would most certainly have seen the now famous images of Omar with an AK-47 assault rifle in the background or Omar assembling an improvised explosive device.

You can even watch the episode of 60 Minutes that demonstrated this quite clearly.

Now, I have a hard time believing that Margolis with his well-informed positions would have missed this bit of information. So, the question really is, why does he ignore it?

The same as anything else when it comes to political posturing: ideology

Eric certainly has a right to his opinion. He certainly has a right to believe that the war in Afghanistan is a sham or some kind of shell-game devised by George W. Bush to get control over the Middle East in order to lower oil prices. He has the right.

But, truth is a... well... we know what it is. And obvious facts are obvious facts. Eric can claim all he wants that Omar Khadr is a victim that would never have been involved in military activities. However, I've never been convicted with drug dealers. I've never been shot at as part of a gang. And I've never been arrested at violent G20 protests. Why? Because I don't associate with those groups.

Omar was arrested in a structure where resistance fighters had gathered. And when the dust had settled, he was one of only two people who could have lobbed the grenade that killed US Sgt Christopher Speer. Video shows him playing with detonation cables and land mines. Can't say that any of those situations would be something your average Canadian would be a part of.

As such, I can hardly cry for Mr Margolis as he says good-bye to the opinion column he wrote for the Sun media. He's cried that his ouster is simply a matter of right-wing zealots trying to hush him.

I simply call it quality control.

Census Extortion

2010-07-23T16:41:00.000-04:00

Much has been made by the media of the government's recent decision to abandon the mandatory long-form census. And of course, we hear every spasmodic complaint in the book being thrown around. We even have the looneys like Liberal MP Joyce Murray going so far as to call the government tyrannical.

Joyce Murray wouldn't know what tyrannical is if she was hit by pepper spray at an APEC conference in her home town of Vancouver.

But, I digress...

The real heavy-handedness going on is in the manner by which this census information is obtained. It is one thing to get an accurate view of the people in the room, city, province or country. It is an entirely different thing to threaten them with financial penalties and jail time if they don't sit down and divulge specific information about themselves, their homes, their families and anything else Statscan wants to know.

Extortion is extortion. If you need to apply the threat of force to obtain something of value, there is no other word for it. The government doesn't own us; we employ them. This means that if people do not want to give the government this information (and we have plenty of evidence that they do not) then they should not be threatened by force to do so.

If this is important information, there are other means to obtain it. We live in the information age where much of the information they are requesting could be obtained by well-maintained computer records. I know, I know... how can we expect our civil servants to do a good job, right? And a well maintained system would be far more precise and comprehensive than any form to be filled.

We certainly don't need a government that threatens its citizens to get what it wants.

Starting something new...

2010-07-23T10:38:00.000-04:00

When I was younger, I was the type of person who held my views in check. I tended to be so-called "polite" in that I did not engage in putting forth ideas or opinions that might rock the boat. It took me a long time to realize that by not doing so, I may in fact be contributing to the boat sinking or capsizing in other ways.

And as such I came to the realization that it is the responsibility of every citizen, of every person, to contribute their perceptions and their ideas to the world. Only through exposure can ideas survive the crucible of reality. And if those ideas pass the test of analysis they may in fact be worth so much more than any degree of being polite.

With that... I am starting something new.

It's time to put my name to my ideas.

It's time to have the courage of my beliefs by testing them in the open where they can be dissected and either corrected or accepted.

I will not apologize for having a perception that is my own as all free people do.

And perhaps I may in fact contribute in ways unseen... a remedy of sorts for the society I have a privilege to be a part of.

So, let's rock...