Gettin’ Out Of Dodge

Reader Tips 21 Comments

I’m leaving for Calgary today for the weekend, so it’s a quick reader tips post. Drop your finds in the comments or send a trackback. I will be checking in from time to time, but blogging will be light until Monday.
A good opportunity to exand your blog horizons – check out the sites on the blogroll!

21 Replies to “Gettin’ Out Of Dodge”

  2. Sometimes it gets too serious for too long a period so maybe it’s time to lighten up…
    A man enters a bar and orders a drink. The bar has a robot bartender.
    The robot serves him a perfectly prepared cocktail, and then asks him,
    “What’s your IQ?”
    The man replies “150” and the robot proceeds to make conversation about global warming factors, quantum physics and spirituallity, biomimicry,
    environmental interconnectedness, string theory, nano-technology, and sexual proclivities
    The customer is very impressed and thinks, “This is really cool.” He decides to test the robot. He walks out of the bar, turns around, and
    comes back in for another drink. Again, the robot serves him the perfectly prepared drink and asks him, “What’s your IQ?”
    The man responds, “about a 100.”
    Immediately the robot starts talking, but this time, about football, NASCAR, baseball, supermodels, favorite fast foods, guns, and women’s breasts.
    Really impressed, the man leaves the bar and decides to give the robot one more test. He heads out and returns, the robot serves him and asks,
    “What’s your IQ?”
    The man replies, “Er, 50, I think.”
    And the robot says… real slowly… “So…………… ya gonna
    vote for the Liberals again?”

  3. Two years after AdScam Martin declared “the democratic deficit” to be his most pressing pledge to Canadians : H/T Don Martin in Ottawa, National Post>>>>>
    Screen shot for posterity, please:
    http://www.democraticreform.gc.ca/
    Government of Canada / Gouvernement du Canada
    The page you are looking for is currently unavailable. La page que vous recherchez est actuellement non-disponsible

  4. The Culture of Entitlement continues…
    From CBC news:
    http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/11/24/immigration-consultants051124.html
    The former chairman of a body the federal government set up to regulate immigration consultants says he quit because board members wanted to pay themselves $60,000 a year to attend 12 one-day meetings.
    Toronto lawyer Ben Trister told CBC News that he resigned from the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants last month over his concerns that board members were mismanaging the organization.
    […]
    The federal government created the society two years ago to impose ethical guidelines and standards on an industry that had been plagued with problems. Many potential newcomers to Canada were complaining that their cases were handled poorly, or that unscrupulous people calling themselves consultants had taken their money for no work.
    The immigration minister at the time, Denis Coderre, named Trister and eight others to the board of the society, which had more than a million dollars in startup funds.
    […]
    Joe Volpe, the current immigration minister, said there’s little he can do because the society is now an independent not-for-profit corporation.
    **********
    From what I could determine, the board was set up and appointed by Coderre in October 2003 as a transitional board until the society was fully operational. But they don’t have to hand over control until the transition date, March 2006, when the actual dues-paying members of the society hold their first elections to the board.
    Until that time, the board can set their own salaries. From the society’s bylaws (pdf file):
    http://www.csic-scci.ca/document/Canadian_Society_ByLaws_Eng.pdf
    3.13 Remuneration of Directors
    (a) Prior to the Transition Date, the Initial Directors may determine from time to time the remuneration of the Directors.

  6. Happy Thanksgiving, Neighbors!

    Many early groups of colonists set up socialist states, all with the same terrible results. At Jamestown, established in 1607, out of every shipload of settlers that arrived, less than half would survive their first twelve months in America. Most of the work was being done by only one-fifth of the men, the other four-fifths choosing to be parasites. In the winter of 1609-10, called “The Starving Time,” the population fell from five-hundred to sixty.

    Then the Jamestown colony was converted to a free market, and the results were every bit as dramatic as those at Plymouth. In 1614, Colony Secretary Ralph Hamor wrote that after the switch there was “plenty of food, which every man by his own industry may easily and doth procure.” He said that when the socialist system had prevailed, “we reaped not so much corn from the labors of thirty men as three men have done for themselves now.”

    Link

    And to my fellow Canadians:

    This weekend is a good time for quiet reflection and for giving thanks to Karl Marx, Mao Zedong, Tommy Douglas and Pierre Onefinger for your socialist waiting lists, socialist potholes, socialist unwatchable media, socialist taxes, and your socialist government incompetence, cronyism and corruption.

    As ye sow …

  7. Read the fine print on this one:

    Chronic pain sufferers in Atlantic Canada face lengthy wait times – study
    An outrage, right? Wrong:

    Action Atlantic, a non-profit group of physicians and patients, says the region’s 460,000 chronic pain sufferers could wait on average up to a year and a half to get treatment.
    In a population of 2.3 million, Atlantic Canada appears to have 460,000 “chronic pain sufferers”: that means 20% of Atlantic Canadians is in chronic pain, bad enought that they need to see a specialist.
    I call bullspit. “Chronic Pain”? Try “Bad Back Brotherhood”. As always, follow the money:

    “The study was carried out with the help of a $50,000 grant from pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, a manufacturer of pain drugs. ”
    Right. Let’s call this what it is – AN INSURANCE SCAM.

  8. No ,.. I must disagree Anonalogue.
    There are at least half a million chronic pains in the ass on the east coast.

  11. This weekend I will be giving thanks to Stephen Harper.
    Kate, if you happen to be around the Dog and Duck Public House in Calgary ’bout 5pm Friday, there’s nothing I’d like more than to buy you a beer and if not a beer then the Steak ‘n Kidney Pie is to die for.

  12. Breaking: Marines Battling Syrian Troops?
    Currently unverified, but if true this could be huge news: DEBKAfile is reporting that US Marines have crossed the border into Syria, and are locked in battle with Syrian forces. (Hat tip: LGF readers.)
    November 25, 2005, 12:27 AM (GMT 02:00)
    Both sides have suffered casualties. US soldiers crossed over after Damascus was given an ultimatum Thursday, Nov. 24, to hand over a group of senior commanders belonging to Abu Musab al Zarqawi�s al Qaeda force. According to US intelligence, the group had fled to Syria to escape an American attack in Mosul. Syrian border guards opened fire on the American force>>>
    via LGF

  14. Chronic pain, hm? That would be WCB, longterm disability and repeat UI claims…Ooops, that would be EI, of course.

  15. I personally think this one is huge. Not because we didn’t know all about the MSM and the Globe in particular, but because they’ve confirmed it.
    This is a G&M story that gives away the cosy relationship between the Bell Globemedia and the Liberal Party:
    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20051124.ELECTSTRATEGY24/TPStory
    About 2/3rds down is this:
    Meanwhile, a lobbyist for a communications company told Ontario Liberal MPs at their caucus meeting yesterday to expect a negative campaign both from the opposition and the news media.
    Charles Bird is a lobbyist for Bell Globemedia (owner of The Globe and Mail and CTV) and is the Ontario campaign chairman for the federal Liberals. He told Ontario MPs the electorate is “very volatile” and warned that “it’s going to be a very negative campaign.”
    However, he vowed that Liberals will not be deterred.
    “We will give as good as we get,” he told MPs, according to an insider.
    My question is why are there such close ties between the governing party and the media (who are theoretically supposed to keep them honest?) Is this incestuous relationship not an unethical violation of journalistic integrity (an oxymoron if I’ve ever heard one…)

  17. Geeze Herr Martin gives Quebec 500 million for so-called “Provincial Transfer Payments topping” and now another 350 Million this week?
    Herr Martin seems to be throwing the “kitchen sink” into Quebec to try to save his ass from the rest of Kanada. Good thing he gets so much “Englais” tax money to spend on his French breathern, though does he even “like” the “Englais”…. Herr Martin and Herr Pettigrew “stiffed” the Commonwealth Nations meeting which included Britain, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and others, I wonder if they would have “stiffed” a “FRANKOPHONIE MEETING? OR A MUSLIM MEETING
    Herr Martin hollered out in the House the other day “I AM A QUEBECER”,
    GEEZE HERR MARTIN, WHO COULD TELL?
    STEPHEN PARKSVILLE BC WW 2 VET.

  18. The 500 Million was last week and the 350 Million was reported Nov. 23, presumable to help Quebec eliminate GREEN HOUSE GAS!
    I wonder if he Quebecers will use some of the 350 Mill. to eliminate the METHANE GAS that comes out of their mouths.
    “Not going to abide by the Clarity Act”, as if they had a choice, more Quebec lies, LOL LOL Now the Bull shit is going to start all over again and again, to try create fear in the very “bowells” of Canadians that QUEBEC MAY SEPERATE, millions of dollars waisted even talking about it, but it keeps the mandate off the Librano$, a great diversion.
    Stephen.

  19. A friend of mine pointed out that SDA was mentioned in the Sask Leg recently – and yours truly got quoted by Dan D’Autremont. I’ve got links at my blog to the relevant Hansard.

  20. Could the US dump the UN out of disgust?
    Now the UN wants $3.6 BILLION for running costs for 05-06. This after the $64 BILLION mess known as the Oil for food Scandal.
    According to today’s Washington Post, Bolton warned the controversial international organization that the U.S. might bypass it in dealing with thorny global problems if the U.N. is unable to make management changes that will make the world body more effective and prevent a recurrence of the kind of corruption revealed in the scandal-ridden Oil-for-Food program.
    Bolton told reporters the General Assembly has “essentially not made progress” since President Bush and other world leaders convened a U.N. summit in September to endorse a platform of changes.
    Changes including proposals to increase scrutiny of spending practices and to create a human rights council that would exclude such rights abusers as Sudan, Cuba, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Zimbabwe all of whom have served on the Council.
    He warned that continued resistance to reforms in the U.N. would drive the American public away from the United Nations. “Americans are a very practical people, and they don’t view the U.N. through theological lenses,” Bolton said.
    *They look at it as a competitor in the marketplace for global problem-solving, and if it’s successful at solving problems, they’ll be inclined to use it. If it’s not successful at solving problems, they’ll say, ‘Are there other institutions?’*
    He added, *Making the U.N. stronger and more effective is a reform priority for us: Because if it’s a more agile, effective organization, it is more likely to be a successful competitor as a global problem-solver.*
    The Post explained that the dispute has underscored the Bush administration’s inability thus far to use the findings of former Federal Reserve chairman Paul A. Volcker’s investigation of the $64 BILLION Oil for Food program to bring on institutional reform.
    Volcker’s 18-month investigation into the U.N.’s management of the Food program in Iraq uncovered evidence of corruption by U.N. diplomats, foreign dignitaries and companies from more than 60 countries.
    ====================
    Guess it’s time to switch to a leaner and more effective UDN. United Democratic Nations.
    More on that at: TGs Place
    Also Wikipedia.com

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