Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Why Are These Men Still Living?

Accidental Release of US Cables Endangers Sources
"The ongoing conflict between WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his former German spokesman Daniel Domscheit-Berg has led to the accidental release of confidential data that was in WikiLeaks' possession. Since the beginning of the year, an encrypted file has been circulating on the Internet containing the collection of around 251,000 US State Department documents that WikiLeaks obtained in spring 2010 and made public in November 2010.

The release of the file could potentially endanger the informants mentioned in the documents, many of whom live in countries whose governments are hostile to the US. The confidential diplomatic cables were redacted before publication to protect sources, but the file on the Internet contains the original, unedited documents.

In the summer of 2010, Assange stored the password-protected file containing the cables in a concealed location on a WikiLeaks server. He gave the password to an external contact to allow him access to the material contained in the file.

When Domscheit-Berg left the organization in September 2010 together with a German programmer, the two men took the contents of the server with them, including the encrypted file containing the documents. As a result, Assange no longer had access to the file."

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Here's Something You Don't See Often

From Libyans: "Thank you America"

And it's not that gratitude isn't more common. It's that you don't see such outpouring reported by the media.

And from the New York Slimes, yet!

But of course, the author has to slip this in:
"Yet let’s also savor a historic moment: This was a rare military intervention for humanitarian reasons, and it has succeeded. So far."
Funny how their memories are so selective. The Iraq war was also, partly, for humanitarian reasons. But the media chose to ignore statements issued by Bush and Blair stating just that.

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Johns Hopkins

Sometimes I can detect a pattern in the visits I get to my blog. Very frequently people from Johns Hopkins University land on this old entry.

Hopefully, they are teaching students what not to do when conducting research.

Previous.

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As Found On Facebook

I swear, I couldn't make this up:

"Families are like panties... Some crawl up your ass. Some snap under pressure. Some don't have the strength to hold you up. Some get a little twisted. Some are your favorite. Some are holy. Some are cheap. Some are naughty. Some are full of shit, and some actually cover your ass when you need them to."

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Another One Of Those...

...trips down memory lane:

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Oops! Have To Find Another Excuse

What's Your Favourite?

Barce Pundit offers a whole bunch of look-alikes using famous mostly contemporary people (and a few long ago types). My favourite is the Keith Richards comparison. What's yours?

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Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Climate Change - Redux

So, you think it's never happened before?

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

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Here's Another Thing...

...we should all blame on the Zionist Entity Apartheid Regime - somehow:



Come on lefties. You can do it. We know you can.

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Remember...

...this guy was once a Dipper premier (in Manitoba):

Letter to the editor of the New York Times from Canadian ambassador, Gary Doer.

What would Jesus - er - Jack say?
"In June, over Harper’s objections, Jack Layton made history again. By passing Layton’s Climate Change Accountability Act, the House of Commons became the world's first legislature to adopt science-based targets to cut climate-changing emissions—by 80% before 2050."
Oh, ya. The Climate Change Accountability Act.

And guess who showed up at the Keystone XL protests outside the White House. Gotta salvage what's left of his reputation, I guess.

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Monday, August 29, 2011

The Bizarro World...

...of Arab dictatorships:

Brother of Lockerbie bomber asks Scotland for help
"The family of the only man convicted over the Lockerbie bombing Monday night appealed to Scottish authorities to send doctors to Libya to help care for him, despite the continued furore over his release on compassionate grounds.

After Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was found, apparently close to death, at his home in Tripoli, his brother, Abdul Nasser al-Megrahi, requested medical assistance from Scotland because the family no longer trusted “local doctors”.

In response, the Scottish Executive made clear that it would not be sending doctors to Tripoli."
You can't make this shit up.

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Is Islam Doomed?

Hehehehehehehe!

Global warming hysteria has had its counterparts. I remember most of these, which I guess is one of the reasons I remain skeptical about the "man-made" angle:

Past Alarmism and the Future of Manmade Global Warming

I can hardly wait to watch the greenie babies scurrying about trying to bury their religion and pretend they never believed it in the first place. I'm so evil!

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Another From The "Good Lord" File

'Bad mothering' lawsuit dismissed
"Raised in a $1.5 million Barrington Hills home by their attorney father, two grown children have spent the last two years pursuing a unique lawsuit against their mom for "bad mothering" damages allegedly caused when she failed to buy toys for one and sent another a birthday card he didn't like." I think I see their point, but maybe it was dad."

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Blessed Event: Sixty Two Years...

...seven hours and thirty two minutes ago, I was born. Ten toes, ten fingers, everything in working order. Likely bawling, but I don't remember for sure.

Anyway, nothing special planned, except that my sister has invited me over for supper this evening.

Other than that, it's just another day.

Oh, and another thing. My parents considered several names for me. My father liked the name Frances. He also had a sister named Olive. My mother favoured Louise. I ended up with all three names, although, my mother, being the person who wore the pants in the family, must have insisted they refer to me as "Louise" rather than "Frances". Consequently, I have traveled through life with the initials F O Louise. I don't think she thought that one through. Or maybe she was just too innocent and unworldly.

My Mom use to play this on the piano:



Hey! Why can't I be self-absorbed once a year?

Another thing my mother used to do every fricken year on my birthday; she'd retell me that the year I was born they (dad) finished the harvesting the day I was born. Must have been early, or something. It never occurred to me to ask why she had to tell me that over and over again. Anyway, that was before they used to let fathers into the delivery room to witness the birth of their children. So I guess he must have driven mom to town, dumped her off at the hospital and went home again to finish the harvest. And what a bountiful harvest it was that year, eh!

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Sunday, August 28, 2011

Another Lovely Evening...

...here in nowheresville, Saskatchewan. I was sitting out in my back yard enjoying the warm evening looking up at the sky. Looking back at me were:

Cassiopeia

Orion

Ursa Major

Ursa Minor

...and of course, the North Star (Polaris).

You have to wonder what those ancients were smoking, though.

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So What Are They Going To Do With Him?

Carefully Chosen Headline?

The headline:

Jack Layton's funeral prompts emotional response from community

Yeah, I had an emotional response: disgust, nausea, contempt for the media as in: "Please, please, please, please, pleeeeease media. Let's move on!"

Not even your much exalted Pierre Trudeau got that much attention from you when he died, and at least Trudeau actually served as Prime Minister - four times in fact, for a total of 16 years - and was leader of the opposition for a few months in the middle of that. Cripes!!! Laytoon didn't do any of that.

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The Green Party...

...sure knows how to pick their candidates:

Brendan Cross a prospective Green Party candidate

Read the comments. Some of them are hilarious.

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Saturday, August 27, 2011

One Way Or Another...

...Quebec is gonna separate. Last year they tried the earthquake route, this year, maybe a hurricane will do the trick.

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We're Doomed

Climate change is happening on Saturn, too.

And Jupiter!
"The complex feature with arms and secondary extensions just above and to the right of center is called the Dragon Storm. It lies in a region of the southern hemisphere referred to as "storm alley" by imaging scientists because of the high level of storm activity observed there by Cassini in the last year."
We simply must cut back on our use of fossil fuels.

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Friday, August 26, 2011

Good Lord

I must say, I felt a lot better about the world before I read this.

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Panic All Over

Of course, this news causes "disbelief", indignation and faux hysteria to break out from all the usual sources.

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Well I'll Be Darned!!

Obama gets Canada to create jobs for Americans

You're welcome!!

Why am I not surprised?

In your face, environuts! Obama betrayed you! Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah!

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Can You Imagine?

...A world without political cartoonists? Apparently Syria's goonish dictator can.

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"Goodnight Irene"

Hope you peter out, soon.
""Sixty-five million people could be in the path of this storm and that's why the Federal Emergency Management Agency's director is saying this could be the largest population ever affected by a single hurricane," Dahlgren told CTV's Canada AM"

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Thursday, August 25, 2011

When In Afghanistan...

...don't fart.

Read the comments. I feel your stomach cramps.

(And how 'bout that list at # 18!)

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Another Round With Stan Rogers

I can't help it. I love him. He, and a handful of other musicians set Canada and her history to music:













Search his name on YouTube. You'll get tons of great music with a distinctly Canadian flavour. It's sad to read some of the comments below the YouTube versions from folks who say they had never heard of him before. We do such a crappy job of promoting our gems, and that despite our $1.1B spent on the CBC and God knows what else put into arts funding promoting half-baked artists with little to no talent.

And these folks filled in some gaps:




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Oh, Stan!

I didn't know you had written a song for me. And what a sweet one it is, too:



Come back to us. So many Canuckistanis don't think we have a culture. You and your work are part of the remedy.

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Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Weird Or What?

How high-tech Canadian drones gave Libyan rebels a boost

Looks like an alien spacecraft or an insect.

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Yup. All The Cool Kids Are Talking About It

Another item about the Keystone XL pipeline:



Ace of Spades HQ

Brian Koenig

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Tuesday, August 23, 2011

I Know You're Grieving And Everything...

...but jeeze, it was a tornado!
"Brenda Turcotte Laberge said Tuesday she wants to know why her 61-year-old husband was the only one killed in the storm that battered Goderich with 280 km/h winds."
Would you feel better if dozens had been killed?

I'm sorry for your loss. I know people sometimes say stupid things when they are distressed. And perhaps CBC is guilty of cherry picking and taking words out of context. But my God!!

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I Spoke Too Soon

From Michael Yon On Facebook

Taleban Commander Gets Stoned

Well, okay. That's not the title the New York Times uses, but it's what Yon uses to refer to it.

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So, You Believe In God

I do, too, except my God is the Super-Intelligent Purple Space Squid:



The narrator, btw, is the same guy who wrote these articles about the Alberta oil sands.

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Monday, August 22, 2011

Here's Some More

...on the Alberta oil sands and Keystone XL pipeline. These ones are from Reason Magazine, which is a publication I've always enjoyed:

The Man-Made Miracle of Oil from Sand

Conflict Oil or Canadian Oil?

I expect we'll see a lot more of this as the Obama administration gets closer to making its decision about the pipeline project. And BTW, I still want to know what the environuts are doing about Joe Biden's quest for coal in Mongolia?

Oh, and another BTW. The author of those two pieces was interviewed by Ron Breakenridge on August 16th.

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Given What's Happening...

...all around them, I think this is hilarious:

AL holds emergency meeting on Israeli attack on Gaza
"The Arab League (AL) started an urgent meeting at the level of permanent delegates on Sunday to discuss measures aimed at stopping Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip."
But silly me. Of course they'll say and do just that. Even though a few of their cronies will be missing at the table, that's all they know how to do.

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Will We Hear From The Environuts...

...on this one?

Biden hails US ties with resource-rich Mongolia
"Joe Biden on Monday hailed the United States' growing ties with Mongolia on a rare visit by an American leader to the Asian nation, which is opening up its vast coal reserves to foreign investors."
[---]
"Mongolia is opening up its vast coal reserves to foreign investors, hoping to stimulate growth and pull thousands of people out of poverty in the mineral-rich but still underdeveloped country."
Surely we can't have that!

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And They Aren't Blaming Global Warming!!!!

I guess that's because it's a good story. Kinda a black eye for the Aboriginal Industry, tho.

Arctic caribou herds may have stopped decline
"Two years ago scientists feared northern caribou were the new cod — once-teeming stocks of wildlife that had sustained entire cultures but were at the edge of collapse.

Now, as scientists from around the world gather in Yellowknife to compare notes, biologists are beginning to see signs that the worst is past for an animal so central to the Canadian imagination it's on the back of the quarter."
[---]
"Factors such as climate change, which upsets the delicate timing of northern ecosystems, and industrial development, which takes out sections of their range, have been blamed for some of the decline. But the two biggest factors were poor calf survival and hunting.

Good weather for the last couple of years has decreased calf mortality. And Adamczewski points out that all the recovering herds enjoy one factor in common — hunting restrictions." [emphasis mine]
[---]
"Our situation overall is looking a lot brighter than it did two years ago," said Jan Adamczewski, a biologist with the government of the Northwest Territories. "Those of us concerned with management of these caribou herds are breathing just a little bit easier."
[---]
"Good weather for the last couple of years has decreased calf mortality. And Adamczewski points out that all the recovering herds enjoy one factor in common — hunting restrictions.

"I think we're fairly clear that in the later stages of the decline, the harvest did start to accelerate the decline."
[---]
"In a recently published paper, Adamczewski and three co-authors estimated the annual aboriginal harvest from the Bathurst herd alone was between 4,000 and 7,000 animals, mostly cows. Best estimates suggest that about 20 per cent of the cows were being killed every year, making it the most heavily hunted herd in the N.W.T.

"They were getting hammered," Adamczewski said.

But when hunting restrictions came in, the Dene could no longer take as many animals as they wanted. It was a huge problem because caribou is on the supper table several times a week in the North and hunting is a central part of what it means to be Dene.

Resistance to the region's first-ever hunting controls was strong. Several aboriginal groups took the territorial government to court. Outfitters brought their own legal action after losing their caribou tags.

But in the end, most of the caribou management boards — composed of government and aboriginal representatives — brought in restrictions.

"We know those were very tough decisions," Adamczewski said. "But there was a sense that they needed to be made."

Biologists don't blame hunting alone for the decline of the herds. Caribou populations have always fluctuated rapidly — with or without human intervention. Climate change is altering the habitat to which caribou have adapted.

And industrial development is nibbling away at their once-unimpeded range. Research to be presented at the conference suggests caribou avoid an area within a 14-kilometre radius of a mine or energy development.

But Adamczewski said an uncontrolled harvest, with hunters using modern high-powered rifles, snowmobiles and GPS systems, has become one of the biggest factors in the way of a recovery.

"When you look at how quickly things changed once harvest was either closed or severely restricted, the proof is right there.
"

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BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Yuk, yuk, yuk, yuk, yuk!

Smirk. Tee, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he!

Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho!

Hah, hah, hah, hah, hah, ha!

Cough! Sputter! Hack!

BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Pleeeeeeeze, Obama, don't die and make him president.

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Speaking Of Manly Men

What's that you say about the Canadian health care system?

Surgeon Amputates Penis Without Permission

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It's Gotta Be Those Skirts

Official: Scottish men are the manliest
"...with 26 per cent of the vote, followed by Australia (16), England (15), Russia (14) and Finland (seven). Americans got two per cent of the vote."
...and what they wear underneath.

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A Different Planet

Yesterday, when I said we might wake up to a very different planet today, I was not thinking about Canada without Jack Layton. Boy, life hands you shit sandwiches sometimes, doesn't it. Now what, I wonder. Her majesty's loyal (sic) opposition is without a leader and the Party is floundering.

Oh, and rumours are swirling that Ghadafi is dead, too. Or maybe not.

But one of these things is not like the other. Jack Layton's passing won't make much difference in the world. Ghadafi's might.

Ghadafi's accomplishments.

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"Dear" President Assad...

...speaks to the nation:

"I'm not worried. I have plenty of cake."


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Sunday, August 21, 2011

Oh! Is The Game Over?

UPPERDATE: There goes all hope of a dynasty.
==================
UPDATE: ROTFLMAO!!

"British and French imperialism will return if you don't help me."



I tell ya, this guy just could not move on. He was a one trick pony.
===================
Breaking: The end of Qaddafi? Update: Qaddafi shot dead? Update: Or not; Update: Qaddafi’s son captured; Update: Compound surrounded

Gaddafi tells Libyans to save Tripoli from rebels

'The offensive for Tripoli is underway': U.S.

Libyan Rebels March on Tripoli: Reports of Gaddafi's Son Captured; UPDATE!! Muammar Gaddafi Flees to Algeria!

Oh my, oh my, oh my. Deep fractures in the Arab Parallel Universe? This could be a very different planet by this time tomorrow. Chaos ahead?

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Oh, Liberals!!

You're so pathetic.

A cat, a dead woman, and a rival politician walk into the Alberta leadership vote...
"The official Opposition threw open its doors in late May, creating a category of “supporters,” who didn’t need to buy a membership, but could vote in its leadership race. It was a groundbreaking move meant to rejuvenate the party ranks, one that Liberal MP Scott Brison believes the federal party should consider."
Why not, Scott. You've already got CBC on side.

What's the cat for? Those of your members who belong to PETA?

And Rahim Jaffer? Didn't you engage in paroxysms of delight at his expense a year or two ago?

Politics. Bedfellows. Liberals. Very, very strange.

But isn't that emblematic of the Liberal Party today? They have no idea of who they are or what they should stand for.

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I Wonder...

...if these two will get out some day, and if they do, will they be of sound body and mind. I doubt it.

U.S. hikers' lawyer, families still hope Iran will show leniency

This whole case is absurd, beginning with the hikers themselves. Why, on God's green earth, would they hike on the Iraq/Iran border? Are they leftards?

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Saturday, August 20, 2011

Ouch!

More On Those Military Budget Cuts

Further to this entry, seems Ottawa's Liberal bureaucracy thinks it's in charge. These are interesting times.

Keep going, Cons!

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They'll Be Sorry...

... My CBC is... : Tell us what the CBC means to you
"CBC's 75th anniversary slogan is "Yours to celebrate." Plenty of celebrations are being scheduled for the anniversary, all of them designed to encourage audiences to express what the CBC means to them.

In that spirit, we're asking you to help get the ball rolling in anticipation of the anniversary festivities. We'd like to hear what the CBC means to you, by asking you to complete the following sentence: My CBC is...

We encourage you to be as creative (or nostalgic) as you like in your answers. Here's how you submit:

Twitter: Send your My CBC is... comments using the hastag #cbc75

Email: You can also you can also (sic) email your reports to yournews@cbc.ca, using the subject line "My CBC is..."

Facebook: This call for submissions will also appear on our CBC News Facebook page. You'll be able to post your comments there.

And if you have any photos or videos involving past CBC-themed events, hosts or tributes, we'd love to see them. You can submit them in the following ways:

Photos: Upload photos here, add them to our Flickr group or email them to yournews@cbc.ca.

Videos: Upload video here. Please do not add graphics or music to the clip."
Trouble is, so few of us watch or listen to the thing. It's highly unlikely they'll really get what's coming.

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And Speaking of "Green"...

It's Heating Up...

...What'd I tell ya? Probably contributing to global warming, it's so hot:

Sixty-five arrested outside White House in Oil pipeline protest

They're soooo original:
"The protesters chanted slogans like “hey, ho, tar sands no!” and “hey hey, ho ho, Keystone XL’s got to go.”

Many in the demonstrating group favored khakis, blazers, ties and other garb that eschewed the overtly countercultural look of some environmental protests."
[---]
"...at roughly 11:38 a.m. the arrests started, beginning with a young woman who organizers said was from Wasilla, Alaska. Police cuffed her as her fellow activists cheered and some yelled “hero, you’re a hero!”"
Wanna bet she'll show up to protest the pipeline we're gonna build to the BC coast, too, if this pipeline doesn't get the - ahem, ahem - "green" light. That'll be right about the same time that Alaska starts drilling for their own oil. Betcha most Alaskans would want to see this pipeline built. They could add their own tributary to it and start pumping.

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Wait 24 Hours

And Now....

...for a little weekend humour:

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Friday, August 19, 2011

Oooookay...

...I guess there is so much free love, flowers, bud and beads in Vancouver, they had to specialize and spread to the burbs: Raucous sex club parties rock B.C. neighbours

I'm not gonna quote portions of this, cause I know you're gonna read it yourself.

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OMG!!

My daughter is sporting a big sparkly rock on her finger. They're gonna make it legal!!

As is her customary style, she announced it on Facebook.

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Getting To The Promised Land

Thursday, August 18, 2011

CBC: In Bed With The Liberals

Taken directly from their website:

"Inside Politics Blog

Finance nerds take note

by Laura Payton Aug. 18, 2011 10:35 PM

Liberal MP Scott Brison is taking suggestions via Twitter for what to ask Finance Minister Jim Flaherty when he appears in front of the House Finance committee Friday."
I'm sure Mr. Brison appreciates the plug, Laura. What's he giving you in return?

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But Did He Have Sexual Relations...

...with "that woman"?

Yes, I inhaled: Hudak

Somehow, I don't think this is gonna hurt him. For one thing, it's so refreshing to see a politician actually being honest. For another, 90% of Canuckistanis his age or younger, and a goodly percentage of those who are older, have - hmhmhmhm - "inhaled".

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More Good News

"The Department of Defence and the Canadian Forces are top heavy with too many civilian bosses in Ottawa and need to shift resources to the front lines, according to a secret defence report."
[---]
"The transformation report, authored by Gen. Andrew Leslie, was submitted in early July but has yet to be released publicly. QMI Agency obtained a copy from a military source.

"By almost any standard and like almost all of our friends and allies, we have too many headquarters, too much cumbersome process, too much overhead, too much tail," Leslie writes in the 80-page report, which has ruffled feathers in the department and forces alike.

Leslie proposes substantially paring down the senior executive levels of both DND and the Canadian Forces, and reinvesting those funds in the front lines to protect "the various systems that result in the people in the ships, battalions and squadrons of aircraft doing the tough and often dangerous work that Canadians are so proud of," he writes. "In short, we are going to have to reduce the tail of today while investing in the teeth of tomorrow.""
Good! Sounds to me like we're gonna dismantle the Liberal Party era and start again from scratch. Can a similar overhaul for the CBC be far behind?

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Hey, CBC, You Hear This?

Canadians becoming more attached to Internet, smartphones: CRTC
"Canadians are turning off their televisions and cutting their land lines in favour of online streaming and smartphones in record numbers, Canada's telecommunications regulator flags in a report released Thursday."
Hey, Harper, you hear this, too? Time to overhaul or dismantle old tired institutions like the CRTC and the CBC!

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That Rarest of Posts...

...when I actually think Hillary enjoys her role as Sec. State. She does a good job in this speech.

For the last two and a half years I have always thought, based on her facial expressions, that she hated her job, or maybe her boss, or both. On the other hand, her boss has come a long way, too. From bowing before potentates and deigning to weigh in strongly when young Iranians were on the streets, he now has learned the importance of making strong statements in support of people living under repressive regimes. I guess he needs to shore up his sagging fortunes at home, too.

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Makes Me Wanna Scream!!!

Humans may be to blame for shark attacks
"An apparent increase in shark attacks may well have a human cause, with low-cost air travel but also over-fishing and possibly global warming among the hidden suspects, say experts.

Headlines this week were grabbed by a decision to close beaches in the Seychelles after a shark savaged a British honeymooner before the horrified gaze of his spouse, in the second fatal attack there in 15 days."
Just what is it you so-called "scientists" don't understand about homo sapiens or about sharks? We're to blame for a shark's hunger drive!!?? With more and more tasty humans floating around off the beaches of the Seychelles, whatdaya think would happen? Do read the entire article. This is spin at its most pernicious.

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Wednesday, August 17, 2011

And When You Get To...

...the Promised Land can you take a little detour into Canada and clean up our race-bating industry?

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Nit-Picky Little Thing About Americans

Before the leftards of the world pile on, let me be clear. I know "they're not all like that".

What's that you say? That doesn't apply to Americans? Only to radical Muslims? Okay. Okay. Okay.

But I gotta say this anyway. Dear Yanks. Some of you don't know how to spell the nationality of your northern neighbours and that ain't very neighbourly.

Many, many times in comment threads on American blogs I see you referring to us collectively as "Canadiens". What do you think we are? Cheese eating surrender monkeys????!!!!

The proper way to spell that IF YOU ARE WRITING IN ENGLISH and IF YOU ARE REFERRING TO CANADIANS IN GENERAL is Canadians. If you are referring to an individual Canadian (for example, if you want to chastise me for being picky), then it is also Canadian with an "a" between the "i" and the last "n", not an "e".

"Canadiens" (with an "e") is the French spelling. But you should be writing in the French language to spell it with an "e".

But French is not that simple. "Canadiens" refers to the male half of the Canuckistani nation or, to Canadians in general without regard to singling out just those who wear those little socks on their private parts in the winter.

On the other hand, and this is where it gets complicated, if you are writing in the French language about the female half of the population that lives in the Great White North, please be advised that the word is Canadiennes.

That's the way the French language rolls. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, is either masculine or feminine and if they really are feminine, and if you really do want to express yourself in the French language, notice there is an "ennes" at the end of the word when referring to females and just an "en" when referring to either males only or citizens of Canada in general.

Now, if you're just a plain vanilla Yank and you don't care about a la Francais, and you want to write or speak in English, then you must use Canadian.

Notice there is no "e" in the word. We use "e" in the word "eh!" instead, so if you really want to use the letter "e" try speaking Canadian for a while. In no time flat, that "eh" will be sliding off your tongue like a toboggan down a hill in winter and you won't even notice you are saying it.

Now, just to make matters worse, if you're a hockey fan, which I suspect is where you get the "Canadien" spelling from, then there is a certain professional hockey team based in the French city of Montreal which is called the Canadiens. Notice the "e". That's because Montreal is a French city and their hockey team is an integral part of the Quebecois (French Canadian) identity. It doesn't matter whether you are speaking or writing in English or French. The Montreal Canadiens is a corporate organization and that is how you spell it.

There is no women's hockey team in the NHL so no one has ever thought to name a professional NHL team the Canadiennes. However, if you are referring to all those good looking babes with boobs from Quebec who speak French and who consider themselves citizens of the country of Canada, they can be collectively be referred to as Canadiennes.

So, to reiterate, if you are speaking French and referring to either males or females in general, OR if you are referring to the hockey team, the Canadiens, then the word has an "e" after the "i".  Bear in mind, these guys on skates are extremely macho and you may get slammed into the boards or have your teeth knocked out with a stick if you refer to them as Canadiennes, since, in essence, you just called them girls.

Is that clear? Nah. I didn't think so. But just remember, unless you are referring to the Montreal based hockey team or you think you are writing in the French language, the word is spelled "Canadian"!  If you ARE referring to the hockey team or you are writing in French, go ahead and use the "e".  Eh!  Love ya!

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"Canada, One Of The Other Seven States"

"President Obama is barnstorming the heartland to boost US jobs in a taxpayer-financed luxury bus the government had custom built — in Canada..."
hehehehehehehe

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Speak For Yourselves, Assholes

Royal military link slammed as colonial throwback
"Restoring the "royal" designation to Canada's air force and navy is a regressive and unnecessary move that will backfire on the Conservative government, say critics of the decision.

"We've had gradual, incremental changes toward putting our colonialist symbols into the dustbin of history, and this is the first time a government has taken steps to restore it," says Tom Freda, co-founder and director of Citizens for a Canadian Republic.

"I believe they're wrong-headed and they're making a mistake. The public will remember this and see this is as a party of the past. Canadians don't think the monarchy is appropriate for the 21st century.""
Colonialist symbols???!!! I welcome this move because it honours the sacrifice made by my Dad and his brother (Canadian Army), my mom's oldest brother (Royal Canadian Navy) and her younger brother (Royal Canadian Air Force). My Air Force uncle, BTW, was also a POW. I only regret none of these men lived long enough to see this happen.

Trust the CBC to play up a negative angle on this story. Most other media coverage of it does not emphasize the nay-sayers. Much of the coverage deals with how pleased veterans are to see this long-ago mistake corrected. Now, if we could just can the CBC, that would be another mistake corrected.

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Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Yah, Yah, Yah...

...don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

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The Trudeau Legacy

As I've noted before, it is currently fashionable among those on the right side of the aisle (that's right-wing, not necessarily "right" as in "correct") to blame all of Canada's current woes on Pierre Trudeau.

Indeed, the vilification of the man has reached insane proportions.
"Last week I attended a packed house debate at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) on whether or not the late Pierre Trudeau was a disaster for Canada.

To his eternal credit, my son-in-law, that nice David Frum, argued the affirmative, while John English, author of two books on Trudeau, argued the opposite.

The debate was part of a series of lively debates at the ROM, and if this one is any indication, the idea is a winner.

I wondered if the topic was chosen because of a survey conducted by the Canadian National Historical Society’s magazine The Beaver that named Trudeau the “worst Canadian” — worse, even than Clifford Olson (ninth), Paul Bernardo (fifth), or Conrad Black (tenth). An eclectic hate list."
Come on people!! Worse than a couple of serial killers? Gimme a break!!

Now, I admire Peter Worthington, the author of the above article. He's one of those rarest of breeds in Canadian journalism - a conservative, who for decades had been pretty much a lone voice in the Canadian MSM wilderness. He now has company, thank goodness.

But, I really must challenge some of his assertions, as detailed in the article:
"While I share Frum’s view, it should be noted that the Canada we live in today is largely Trudeau’s doing and cannot be undone.
Bull. There is plenty we can do about it, and I believe we are on the road to doing that.
"In no particular order, here some other points to consider.

Trudeau unnecessarily gave Canada a written Constitution which, in effect, means if it ain’t written down, we don’t have it. There is no clause giving Canadians the “right” to own property – a right that was excluded from the earlier Bill of Rights.

The Constitution guarantees the right of assembly — i.e. to join a union – but no right not to join a union. To have one but not the other is wrong and potentially damaging."
More bull. The forging of the Constitution was the work of the Prime Minister and ten provincial premiers, lest you forget. Also, the constitution contains an amending formula. Perhaps it's time to dust that off and create a "first amendment" of our own. It might help if we put aside our whipping boy and take responsibility ourselves for the problems we see in our times. We've certainly had enough time to learn what some of the problematic areas of the constitution are. What are we waiting for? I am reminded of how some people remain perpetually adolescent, blaming the older generations, never growing up.
"Trudeau brought in our Official Languages policy that is hugely expensive and divisive. Unity based on two official languages does not work well – witness Switzerland and Belgium, where language divisions prevail."
True enough, Trudeau could have stopped that policy from ever seeing the light of day, but, Mr. Worthington, have you forgotten the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism? That was Lester Pearson's baby. And it was the recommendations of that Commission that Trudeau implemented. It was supported by the Progressive Conservatives and the New Democrats.
"Multiculturalism is a Trudeau legacy that was forced on the country rather than evolving naturally. Instead of a melting pot, Canada was forced into a mosaic of oft-competing interests, making unity more difficult. Witness the push by some to have Sharia law imposed."
Just when did we abandon our responsibility to address issues as they arise and just when did any politician, or polity for that matter, possess crystal balls? Yes. Policies implemented all those years ago have proven to be the wellspring of some pretty dicey issues today, but it is today's politicians that need to address them and hopefully solve them.

But we have to elect them. That's why the Conservatives now have a majority. We want our country to move forward in a different direction, and, perhaps, if we can keep the Liberals out long enough, we can and should dismantle some of the Trudeau era legacy.

But we won't, if all we can do is sit around and whine about the past. It's high time we started living in the here and now, which, IMHO, requires that we let Trudeau be judged by the standards of his time. And that is something I hope to examine in a future post.

In the meantime, it's time to address issues at hand and to do that, we need to understand that every generation inherits problems whose roots are in the past. Trudeau era initiatives are hardly the only policies in our history that have needed a thorough vetting and overhaul.
"Trudeau sought to gut and trivialize the Canadian military, by ever reducing the military budget while encouraging inflation. In the early days of his reign, he investigated withdrawing from NATO."
Yes, but once again, consider the times. Just a few years prior to Trudeau becoming PM, his predecessor, Lester Pearson, won the Nobel Peace Prize for implementing the UN Peacekeeper idea and resolving the Suez crisis. Perhaps, if Canada's role on the international stage was to be one of Peacekeeping, a robust and well funded armed forces was not in the cards. Always remember, that in history, one must understand the prevailing sentiments of the times. This was the '60s, after all.
"He admired dictators like Fidel Castro and especially Mao Zedong, of whom he wrote admiringly in his book Two Innocents in Red China, where he felt the pain Mao endured for the Chinese people – whom he killed by the millions.
When as PM he visited the Soviet Union, Trudeau said the KGB fulfilled much the same role as the RCMP – which was a canard because the RCMP is nothing like the KGB with its network of spies, informers, surveillance in every office and apartment complex, cultural center, sporting facility. Nor does the RCMP assassinate presumed enemies."
Mr. Worthington. You're an old man. Perhaps your memory fails. Mine does too, sometimes. But I do remember when CSIS was formed. Prior to that, it was indeed, the RCMP that was our spy agency. While it's true that neither the RCMP nor CSIS are as ruthless and murderous as the KGB, perhaps you are reading a bit too much into Trudeau's statement. After all, it was on his watch that the separation of the two services took place. 
"He lied to the Canadian people when he justified his Soviet sponsored visit to Moscow in 1952 as head of a Canadian communist delegation, on grounds that he threw snowballs at Stalin’s statue – in April, when there was no snow."

Well, this I did not know. But again, consider the times.
"On the positive side, Trudeau’s finest hour was during the FLQ crisis when he imposed the War Measures Act which ended the crisis and soothed the country. Unmentioned was that Trudeau knew and had worked with many of the FLQ activists, and took them seriously as a threat to Canada." 
Yes. I too believe the FLQ crisis to be his finest hour. Perhaps his actions during that crisis need to be considered when evaluating his alleged commie sympathies in 1952. He was 33 years old in 1952. At the age of 33 I too was still a starry-eyed idealist and found fairy tales very appealing. Most of us put away childish things, though, and grow up. It's time Canada did.

Trudeaumania belongs in the same class as Beatlemania, a youthful craze, but the rank and file member of the Liberal Party of Canada chose him as their leader, and there were far more older folks in the party than gob-smacked teens. And in 1968, when he first became Prime Minister, only the earliest baby-boomers were eligible to vote. (The voting age was still 21, remember, meaning only those born in 1950 or earlier could have had a role to play in his becoming PM in 1968 and probably even fewer can be blamed for his assumption of the Liberal Party leadership. The older folks must have been smitten, too.)

Anyway, I've had my interest piqued, so I've been reading up on the Trudeau era, which I lived through myself and, consequently, have something of an eye-witness take on the times. Expect more.

PS: A podcast of the debate Worthington and Frum speak about is available here.

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Monday, August 15, 2011

The Battle Has Been Joined

A decision about the Keystone XL Pipeline is in the works.

I'm looking forward to weeks/months of hysteria as the decision process lurches forward.

Lines have been drawn.

Pro

Pro

Con

Con

Upwards of eight or more governments (Federal in two countries, as well as state and provincial) are involved, not to mention a myriad of associations and non-profit societies on either side of the issue, including an assortment of nobodies who know nothing about the oil industry, including one Climate Change fraudster, James Hansen, and, of course, Holly weird types. (What would a left-wing cause be without its Holly weird types?)

Each side is also bringing out its "scientists" or whatever.

Some nasty tactics are being employed, or at least alleged. Protests are planned, and lobbyists dispatched, and lawsuits filed.

What will Hillary's decision be? And can The One justify letting her kill all those potential jobs, considering the economic climate he has fostered? Can he calculate the political balance sheet of a scenario in which a handful of environuts stand to be disappointed, while thousands of his unemployed countrymen who blame him and his party for their joblessness, stand to lose their best hope of gainful employment, especially in an election year, which is when this pipeline business will get going in earnest, if approved?

In the meantime, China can be very patient. It's one of the oldest civilizations on the planet and it's where carbon based fuel was first used several millennia ago.

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Interesting

UPDATE:  Here's an interesting response to this news.

=========Original Post Starts Here=========
Canada to restore 'Royal' to navy, air force

After 43 years! Is this symbolic of something? Are we trying to recover the spirit of a dead or dying generation? Are we going back to where, IMHO, we took the wrong path in the fork in the road?

I wonder what my uncle would think, the one who was a 'Royal' Canadian Air Force pilot during WWII?

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Absolutely Fascinating

This is right up my alley.



I love the study of history and one of the central questions to be settled in my mind is what attributes cause civilizations to rise and, conversely, to fall.

Why and how do some succeed while others fail to achieve global (relatively speaking) hegemony where others, by necessity, become (or remain) marginal or subservient?

In the past there were different mixtures of hegemonic civilizations and marginalized/subservient ones. Can the answer to my central question be the same for all civilizations in all cases, or is there something about the times in which they appear on the stage that is unique to those times? My hunch is that certain ideas and attributes that contribute to the rise and fall of hegemonic civilizations are timeless. But what are they?

My hunch is that technological advantage is a big part of it, but not necessarily the whole thing. I've got a whole bunch of books that may shed light on this question for me, but I haven't found time to read them yet. Damn internet! Be gone, damned blog! But one of my favourite historians, William McNeill may have the answer.

If I wasn't such a compulsive book buyer, I might have time to read more.

BTW, I hate the word "hegemony". Just like "raaacism" or "raaacist" or "colonialism", it's one of those favourite overused and misused words employed by the left to the point where it has become boring and ineffective.

The colonial era, BTW, is one of those eras in history were the rise and fall question is very easy to track. But there has to be something under-girding European culture that lead to the continent's dominance of the entire planet, and not only that, but why did some European empires do "better" than the others as far as building and keeping empires was concerned?

And what about America? There's no empire there, in the classical sense, but there is certainly nearly unchallenged and unchallengable influence, which, under the current administration, they no longer seem willing to use. Is that what causes rises and declines: The willingness to use the tools in your kit?

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Sunday, August 14, 2011

BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

Big Brother wants to silence us
"Imagine that: Artists are supposed to be at the forefront of freedom of expression. But government artists care more about their grant money than freedom. So they piled on.

Not to debate us. They don't believe in debate. They want to silence us.

Well, this week the Sun finally fired back. Our lawyers wrote a letter to the CBSC complainers explaining very slowly, and in small words, we are not part of the government. We are not like the CBC, which is owned and controlled by the government. We are free."

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Much Ado About Nothing

MIT researchers claim UN Arctic predictions are inaccurate
"The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had released its most recent report in 2007.

It forecasts that the Arctic Ocean will have an ice-free summer by the year 2100. However, that finding has been contradicted by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

They say the Arctic summer will be ice-free several decades earlier, within many people’s lifetimes."
Gee. Kinda reminds be the British Columbia's coastline during the Ice Age.
"Research from the 1990s has indicated that the Ice Age-era coastline of the British Columbia Coast was lower by about 100 metres (330 ft). The effect of the waterlevel on the coastline was such that the Queen Charlotte Strait, which is between Haida Gwaii and the northern end of Vancouver Island, was a coastal plain, as were all the straits inland from it, except for those that were mountain valleys. Underwater archaeology has shown the presence of permanent human habitations and other activity at the 100-metre (330 ft) contour, and the Ice Age existence of such a coastal plain has put a new light on Ice Age populations in North America as well as on the strong likelihood of this area having been the major migration route from (and perhaps to) Asia."
It's happened before folks, long before we were churning out CO2. What makes this so different?

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Interesting Analysis Of Human Population History

I'm sure I could tie this entry together with this article, but I just haven't had the time, yet.

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Your Spoonful Of Laughter....

...to start the morning off right. More than one person has noticed bookstores were spared during the London riots. Here's some analysis of that strange phenomenon:

Maybe the Least Insightful Comment Thus Far on the British Riots

The laughs, as usual, are in the comments.

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Saturday, August 13, 2011

CBC Plans For The Future

It's all explained in thirteen minutes and nineteen seconds of irrelevant gobbledy-gook. Best I can figure out is they sincerely believe that the medium is the message and the message doesn't need to change, only the medium of its transmission:

Check out Hubert Lacroix's video message Everyone. Every way. Prime piece of gobbledy-gook right here:
"CBC/Radio-Canada serves the second largest and one of the most diverse countries in the world. Our new five-year strategy, 2015: Everyone, Every way, recognises that the public broadcaster can't be all things to all people. But, in its scope, it stakes the claim that we can be something for, and mean something to, every Canadian. Whether it's connecting them to this country, to their communities, or to each other as individuals with their own realities and interests, CBC/Radio-Canada will be there — for everyone, every way."
Huh???

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And Then What?

Province launches review of human rights watchdog
"Ontario is launching a one-year probe into the province’s human rights watchdog.

Toronto lawyer Andrew Pinto will examine changes made in 2008 to the Human Rights Code — including if the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario is effectively doing its job.

Earlier this year, Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak reversed his stand on his promise to scrap the human rights tribunal. He now says that if he is elected in the Oct. 6 provincial election, he would “fix” the human rights system, which he once referred to as a “kangaroo court”."
Chickenshits, the whole lot of them.

It's interesting to see the breakdown of "agree" and "disagree" in the comments. I wonder if McGuinty and Hudak will read this and come to the right conclusion.

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FTFY

Rights Wrongs groups uneasy over Cameron's riot crackdown
"Tossing rioters out of state-subsidized homes, unmasking young men who hide their faces behind hoods, demanding that phone networks shut off access to messaging services or social networks during unrest. (Ed. Sounds good to me.)

Britain's government has pledged an iron-fisted response to the wide-scale looting and violence that scarred London and other English cities — for some reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher's uncompromising stance against civil unrest. (Ed. Who, dear dingbats, was elected PM three times, two of which were with resounding majorities.)

While there are those who cheer the tough talk from Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, others recall center-left leader Tony Blair's response to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States — and the legal missteps that corroded civil liberties and fueled mistrust of authority among young Muslims."
So wide spread destruction and looting have to be allowed in order to appease "young Muslims"? You go, Cameron! And may the courage of your strong stance spread to other Western capitals!

Seriously, though, I'll bet a large majority of Brits agree with their PM. It's only the MSM that wrings its hands and blubbers like a baby, while empowering Islamism. And BTW, did this riot have anything to do with perceived Muslim grievances? I don't think so, but even if it did, appeasement is not the answer.
"Cameron has pledged to hand police, local authorities and the courts sweeping powers to mete out severe punishments to those involved in the unrest. He has also warned that in the future, looters could be met by the rare sight of water cannons, dye sprays and even the country's military deployed on Britain's streets.

"The fight-back has well and truly begun," Cameron declared Thursday in an emergency session of Parliament.

Under one of the most contentious plans, the government will consider whether to make it easier for local authorities to evict people who are convicted of crimes and live in homes subsidized by taxpayers.

Currently, authorities can boot out residents who commit offenses in their own neighborhood only — and evict about 3,000 of Britain's 8 million public housing tenants each year. If the new plans are approved, it won't matter where a person has committed their crime."
Time to give this approach a try.

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Friday, August 12, 2011

Fifty Years Ago...

...tomorrow the Berlin Wall went up. Unbelievable what some people think about it.

And I didn't know Angela Merkel grew up on the east side of that wall!
"“This event is important to me because it has so much to do with my own life,” Merkel, who grew up in East Germany, said in a video podcast from July 23 posted on her website. “I couldn’t visit my aunt; I couldn’t visit my cousins. That affected my whole life.”"
Can you imagine living in the same city but unable to visit your relatives who live on the other side of an unscalable wall?

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Clearing A Path...

...for retreat:

Arctic sea ice will go up, go down over short term: scientist

Hoping against hope we will have forgotten all about this scam by the time the "short term" is over?

Seems to me what she's saying is the massive ice sheets of the last ice age are still, surprise, surprise, in retreat! Or at least it amounts to the same thing.

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Enough, Already!!

I'm a boomer. An early boomer. I came of age during the Age of Aquarius and I was as hippy-dippy as all the cool kids, even if I didn't carry placards and protest against Vietnam, or whatever cause celebre of the day I happened to bump into along the way. But I categorically reject this notion that boomers are responsible for all the troubles we have today.

Cripes!  Every generation leaves in its wake a mess for the next one. The world is a messy place. We may clean up a little bit here, but our rags and wash water get dumped over there.  And there will be some messes that we don't even see. Think of your teenagers and their bedrooms.

We can look back in anger, but we can never really see the future. Mark my words, all you gen-Xers or Nexters or whatever you latest incarnation are calling yourselves. Your constant harping about boomers is proof of that. You're looking back in anger. You aren't looking forward and probably won't start to just because, I, one of your elders, am telling what you might expect in the future. But I'll do it anyway.

To be sure, there will be surprises ahead for you. There will be disappointments. There will be problems and opportunities to which you will be totally blind. There will be plenty of what you regard as triumphs that will later be vilified by your children and grandchildren.  And they may be wrong or they may be right.

Bottom line, you won't do a heck of a lot better than any of us in the boomer generation did. Nor will your children. Life just isn't like that. Just do the best you can. Have respect for those who went before you and love your children but leave their future up to them.

I'm not finished my rant yet. I want to make a few excuses and tell you what it was like as a boomer coming of age in the late 60s. 

It's very fashionable today to hear Pierre Trudeau vilified.  He became Prime Minister in the first election in which I was eligible to vote.  We didn't know, nor did he, what would be the long-term consequences of his policies.  No. Politicians don't have crystal balls. They're human. Like you and me.

So you don't like things like multi-culturalism or bi-lingualism. So what? When these were introduced they were seen as innovative and good. We didn't have crystal balls, either. Nor do you. And besides, much of what we conservatives whine about today and which we naively - and wrongly - lay at Trudeau's feet really got started in the 1930s, or earlier.  Think FDR.  Or, for a Canadian example, think of the CCF. This was the hay-day of social engineering. Socialism was the flavour of the times when Trudeau came of age and it was still there, enjoying a resurgence, perhaps, when boomers came of age.

We all come of age in a social and political context that could well be fleeting. Do the best you can with yours, but don't fall for the myth that you are unique or that you will do a better job than that done by previous generations. 'Cause history tells us, you won't. The past is there to learn from, not to fixate upon or vilify. Use your life to do your best to solve the problems you see around you and leave the rest up to whatever god you may think exists, even if you may think it's only fate. And forgive us our idealism for a world without idealism is a world without hope and no one can rob you of hope except yourself.

"Things to be Desired" or "Desiderata"



Betcha didn't know Trudeau recorded this poem, too.

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Thursday, August 11, 2011

Moving On In Saskatchewan

As we stubble jumpers look forward to a new era, it seems some folks just can't let go of the past.

Yawn.

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Cognitive Dissonance

Here's a story that begs a few questions:

Ancient settlement may have been discovered on B.C. coast
"Oral traditions of the Heiltsuk people tell of the ancient village of Luxvbalis, abandoned after a small pox epidemic in the late 1800s and lost because so few were left to tell the tale.

The village may just have been discovered on a site on Calvert Island, in Hakai Luxvbalis Conservancy, located off British Columbia's central coast and its history could date back to as much as 10,000 years.

"People lost information about the exact location after they were decimated during the epidemics in the 1800s."
What else was lost during epidemics? And what's so special about 10,000 years? That's well within the usual estimates of the arrival of humans in North America.

We're always treated to tall tales about how traditional knowledge and tribal histories have been passed down for eons, "proving" that "the creator" "put us here" and blah, blah, blah, while at the same time there's smallpox epidemics introduced by Europeans via blankets to exaggerate, whine and complain about - genocide, biological warfare, etc., etc., etc., blah, blah, blah.

But you don't often hear - nah - you never hear that smallpox epidemics or other diseases might have wiped out oral histories "because so few were left to tell the tale". That'll never do. Contradictory narratives, although very abundant, must remain unnoticed.

Ever wonder why seemingly every square inch of this country is a sacred burial ground? But only sometimes.

And another thing. Using 33 years as the definition of a "generation", a thousand years is about thirty, maybe 35 generations. Each generation, one would suppose, has new stories and knowledge of contemporary events to pass on to up and coming generations.

How can knowledge be passed along from generation to generation for 10,000 years? It would be hard enough to keep things going for 10,000 years if only the first generation's stories were passed down. Three hundred generations worth of oral history would take a long,long time to commit to memory, let alone pass on to the younguns, never mind adding the current generation's knowledge to the storehouse of tribal lore.

And then there are those who reject the 10,000 year theory and believe, instead, that the American continents were peopled perhaps 60,000 years ago, not to mention the fundamentalist's notion that the Aboriginal peoples of the Americas were "created" here.

I don't buy it. The only way this Indian Industry meme hangs together is via the mechanism of intimidation and political correctness. Cognitive dissonance be damned.


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Oh Yah, Baby!

Poll indicates Sask. voter intent remains the same

We're gonna keep those scary socialist fundamentalists outta power for another four years. That's a good start.

Oh, and Dwayne, until and unless the NDP stops using this tired old rhetoric about "families" and "trickle down" economics, in fact, until and unless you cease being scary socialist fundamentalists, and completely reinvent yourselves, you are history. Statements like this:
"He will make sure the province’s economic prosperity trickles down to Saskatchewan families."
Well, awe, isn't that cute in an old and worn out sort of way. What does "trickle down" actually mean, anyway? Make the rich pay by stealing their wealth and giving it to those who haven't earned it?

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Wednesday, August 10, 2011

You Don't Suppose...

...this is why Al Gore is screaming mad about those pesky deniers, do you?
"The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of American Adults shows that 69% say it’s at least somewhat likely that some scientists have falsified research data in order to support their own theories and beliefs, including 40% who say this is Very Likely."
[---]
"The number of adults who say it’s likely scientists have falsified data is up 10 points from December 2009 .

Fifty-seven percent (57%) believe there is significant disagreement within the scientific community on global warming, up five points from late 2009."
How's he gonna line his pockets?

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Riots In England

Root causes.
"Only two groups of people seem to be getting a kick out of the rioting in England.

Firstly the rioters themselves, the nihilistic urban youth who are getting cheap thrills from looting shops, bashing bus stops, and burning down houses. And secondly middle-class radicals, trustafarians who live off daddy's cash, who get a rush of political adrenalin whenever they see blacks burning stuff because it shows that "the oppressed are fighting back!"

These two sections of British society might look and sound very different from each other, with the former more likely to wear tracksuits and trainers and to speak in urban cockney slang, while the latter is usually decked out in skinny jeans and tortoise-shell glasses and speaks with an easy-to-spot "mockney" twang. But they share some important traits, helping to explain their weird meeting of minds over recent riotous behaviour.

Firstly, neither side contributes a great deal to everyday society, the rioters being largely unemployed or even unemployable youth, and their middle-class cheerleaders being either permanent students or professional campaigners. Secondly, both sides live off other people:"
[---]
"Modern-day rioting, of both the posh and poor varieties, is not motivated by a desire to exercise autonomy, by a striving to live independently and experimentally, but rather by a belief that one should always be looked after and cared for and cooed over. In our therapeutic, welfare-entrenched age, our era of Oprah-style victimology, it seems that youth on both sides of the track run the risk of conceiving of themselves as permanent victims of powerful forces."
You know. I'm beginning to think we're gonna be alright. The cult of victimology is being exposed for what it is and soundly beaten.

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We're Still Waiting

In just a little over a month we will be commemorating the tenth anniversary of 9/11. Admittedly, some progress has been made, but for the most part, we are still waiting for the mass movement Zuhdi Jasser speaks of in the last few seconds of this video. Lets hope we see much more of this before the twentieth anniversary is upon us:



It will also help if leftards stop making their irrelevant, vacuous, totally detached from reality assertions about those who are fighting against this scourge.

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Tuesday, August 09, 2011

One More Reason...

...Jason Kenney should be our next PM:

Kenney in mudslinging match with Amnesty International

There was a time when that organization did admirable work. Not any more.

...or John Baird.

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Lefties Are Such...

Conundrum

Without them, how am I gonna prove they could be mine?

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2:00 A.M. Tonight

Should be worth it. The skies are clear, but can I stay awake that late?

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The Screws Tighten

Canada expels Libyan diplomats
"Canada on Tuesday ordered Libya's diplomats to leave the country within five days and cut off their access to the embassy's bank accounts, in a bid to further isolate the regime of Moamer Kadhafi.

"These people now have five business days to vacate the embassy and leave the country," Foreign Minister Baird said in a statement.

A spokesman for Baird said four diplomats at the embassy had been declared "personae non gratae."

Canada is one of the lead nations in a NATO-led alliance that has conducted an aerial bombing campaign against the Kadhafi regime since March, when the United Nations approved action to protect civilians.

Ottawa has contributed six F-18 fighter planes and a frigate, and the NATO mission is led by a Canadian."
[---]
"The NTC [Ed: Libyan National Transitional Council] on Tuesday officially took over the Libyan embassy in London, opening its doors as the legitimate representative of the Libyan people in Britain."

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Never In The History...

...of God knows what, have I agreed more with a Guardian headline and opening salvo:

A vile logic to Anders Breivik's choice of target
"Like Pim Fortuyn before him, Breivik embodies the intersection between rightist populism and liberal political correctness"
But, of course, the liberal element will never examine their own role in creating this stew.

As for the rest of the article, not so much.

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Monday, August 08, 2011

Pot...

...meet kettles:

Gulf nations call for Syrian reforms
"Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain have recalled their ambassadors from Damascus amid mounting pressure from the Arab world against Syria's brutal crackdown on anti-government protests."
Russia warns Assad to prepare for 'sad fate'
"Staunch ally advises Syrian president to move fast on reforms or face tough action from UN"
Oh ya, that'll scare him.

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Sunday, August 07, 2011

Do You Hear Lefty Heads Exploding?

Back in May, a story about the Chilean government exhuming the remains of Salvador Allende was carried by the media. I wrote about it at the time.

I've been waiting for a while to hear the results of this exhumation. Perhaps the lefty heads in our MSM have, in fact, exploded. It was suicide, apparently.

Has the MSM been ignoring this because it doesn't fit the narrative?  Or do they just not buy it?  'Cause lord knows, they can certainly get more miles out of it by referring to it as a political assassination involving the CIA.

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Anybody Remember...

...the Iran-Contra Affair?  Is this a new one in the making, Ill conceived and ill considered, with Democrat fingerprints all over it?  Why don't you just control the damn border?

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A Gift To The Liberals?

I like what Heard says about the future of the NDP and the ROC, but does it open up an opportunity for the Libs to come back?

I agree this could be a disaster for the NDP, but then I'm just a "vile" and "sick old puke", a status I continue to wear with pride BTW.

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Okay, Is This...

...for real or is it just dirty old men seeing what they want to see?

I think it's dirty old men.

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Holy Crappola!

And there's still some 450+ days to go.

I'm beginning to think my admiration for the self-correcting mechanisms in the American system of governance has been misplaced. They're as bad as us!
"A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 17% of Likely U.S. Voters think the federal government today has the consent of the governed. Sixty-nine percent (69%) believe the government does not have that consent."
[---]
"The number of voters who feel the government has the consent of the governed - a foundational principle, contained in the Declaration of Independence - is down from 23% in early May and has fallen to its lowest level measured yet."
[---]
"Perhaps it's no surprise voters feel this way since only eight percent (8%) believe the average member of Congress listens to his or her constituents more than to their party leaders. That, too, is the lowest level measured to date. Eighty-four percent (84%) think the average congressman listens to party leaders more than the voters they represent."
And this one's a keeper:
"Voters also are more convinced than ever that most congressmen are crooks."
Oh well. You gave it a damn good run.

I'll have to summon up Dave in Pa. What say you Dave in Pa? Are the lights going out, or is there yet hope?

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More Competition...

...for CBC. But gosh darn, it's (gulp) American.

It will be interesting to see if their Canadian content is any better than what's currently on offer (Sun TV excepted).

Anyway, this should hasten the demise of state funded broadcasting. Counting the days....

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Is It True...

...rednecks have more fun?



I tells ya, it's getting to be a badge of honour. Nothing beats back a lefty better than taking ownership of their pathetic weenie slurs and having a blast with 'em.

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A Lesson in Contrasts...

...and uselessness:
"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu scrambled on Sunday to try to quell escalating demonstrations for lower living costs after a quarter-million people marched in the biggest economy-related protests in Israel's history."
And not a single shot fired.

Whereas just next door:
"The Syrian army has launched fresh assaults, reportedly killing dozens of people, as international condemnation of the violence against protesters continues to mount.

"Activists in Syria say army troops backed by tanks have attacked a central town and parts of an eastern city, killing at least 24 people.

Activists in the region say troops entered Deir el-Zour in the east early Sunday, killing at least 20 people. Explosions were heard in several parts of the city.

There are also reports at least four people were killed in Houleh in Homs province."
[---]
"The raids come a day after U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to immediately stop using military force against civilians taking part in a four-month-old anti-government uprising.

The U.N. press office says Mr. Ban told the Syrian leader in a rare telephone call Saturday he has "strong concern" at the mounting violence and death toll in the Syrian uprising in recent days."
Dictators kill their own people while leaders of Zionist apartheid regimes respond with promises to do better, at least. And the UN is useless.

I'm pretty sure these lessons will not be lost on the Syrian people, that is, if they even get to hear about it from their press.

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Saturday, August 06, 2011

Just An Interesting Reminder

We were all "Aboriginals" at one time before we built empires:

Aboriginal Britain

Part 1



Part 2



Part 3



Part 4



Part 5



Part 6

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Good Place To...

...cut.

Prepare for howling from all the usual suspects.

What they won't tell you, though, is that there are budget cuts across the entire gamut of government departments.

IT services, for example.
"As it stands, government departments and agencies operate their own IT programs. Because of that, there are more than 100 different e-mail systems, more than 300 data centres and more than 3,000 network services operating across the government, Ambrose said."
Sounds good to me.

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Believe It When...

...you see it.

The Mad Mullahs must be shitting in their drawers.

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Shame On You Rob Ford!

The Great Library Debate
"Do you think public libraries are now redundant in the digital age?"
Scroll down and look at the number of people who disagree! 89.96% as of the time I am writing this!

I wonder how often he uses a public library? Why is it that the politicians who threaten library closures are so often the very people who never avail themselves of the service?

And ain't it grand that so many people rally round their libraries!

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Small Town Living

It's a lovely evening in this here small town.

I was just sitting outside on my front steps enjoying the warm evening, looking up at the sky and discovered that you can actually see the stars. Can't do that in the bigger places, 'cause the streetlights drown out the skies and you can't see anything.

What's really special about the night sky is watching some of the "stars" actually move across the sky. These are either airplanes on their way to or from big cities such as Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Calgary or Edmonton.  I do live in flyover country after all.  Might as well make the best of it.

Or, perhaps, these moving stars are satellites heading who knows where. Or maybe even aliens checking out us earthlings. 

When we were kids on the farm, many eons ago, we used to get old blankets and lay on the grass in the yard, blanket below us, blanket on top, and watch the skies at night.  Used to tease one of our sisters about her joining the family after being shoved down a big tube from an alien spacecraft. That's still a part of the family lore.

August was a great month to be out watching the night skies, especially later in the month, as the earth passes through an asteroid belt and the number of falling stars or shooting stars is phenomenal.

Some nights we also get to see spectacular dancing displays of Aurora Borealis.

City kids miss out on this. Poor kids.

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Friday, August 05, 2011

Yawn

Russian experts claim Arctic Sea ice will have vanished within 40 years

Arctic ice loss has been much worse historically: Study

Arctic tipping point may not be reached

Look, MSM. Why don't you get back to us when there really is something to report?

UPDATE: Now this is worth reporting!!

Of course, it takes the blogosphere to spread the word.

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