102 Replies to “Reader Tips”

  1. Good evening, ladies & gentlemen, welcome to the first SDA Late Nite Radio broadcast for the eighth year of the third millenium. Tonight we have a classic work in the dance electronica genre that I find curiously applicable to some interesting classes of human misbehaviour, from all fields, and, yes, including some blog commenters.
    Here’s Yello[1] performing Vicious Games with Different Names:
    video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-4431747113979907915
    [1] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yello

  2. Thanks Vit. Nice one. Not to be picky(heh),but this is only the seventh year of the third millenium, which started at 12:00:00 Am January 1st,2001.

  4. I’m glad you liked it, Justthinkin, and not to put too fine a point on it, but the first year of the third millenium was 2001 (beginning at 2001-01-01 00:00:00 as you note), the second 2002, and so on, thus as is 2008 the eighth year. It’s like I’m 52 now, but this is my 53’d year. And you people make fun of the Y2K problem. Thank god we had people like me looking after you, pace the fear mongerers 😉

  10. Grab some popcorn, Steven Staples military analyst (yeah, riiiight) has decided to show his face on ARMY.CA.
    I *earn* respect over time (sometimes I’m right and sometimes I’m wrong – I’m man enough to admit it) and resent wannabes that troll for money based on appealing to emotions.
    Staples seems to be yet another “peace at any cost” self-aggrandizing individual seeking money.
    Remember that indoctrination starts at home and with the children. We don’t want that fluffy bunny innocent phase to ever end.
    http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=404190&cid=21890376

  12. Peggy Noonan has a good Iowa summary up in the WSJ opinion journal.
    http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110011083
    The money quotes:
    1. Hillary Clinton, the inevitable, the avatar of the machine, lost.
    It’s huge. Even though people have been talking about this possibility for six weeks now, it’s still huge. She had the money, she had the organization, the party’s stars, she had Elvis behind her, and the Clinton name in a base that loved Bill. And she lost. There are always a lot of reasons for a loss, but the Ur reason in this case, the thing it all comes down to? There’s something about her that makes you look, watch, think, look again, weigh and say: No.
    2. What we have learned about Mr. Huckabee the past few months is that he’s an ace entertainer with a warm, witty and compelling persona. He won with no money and little formal organization, with an evangelical network, with a folksy manner, and with the best guileless pose in modern politics. From the mail I have received the past month after criticizing him in this space, I would say his great power, the thing really pushing his supporters, is that they believe that what ails America and threatens its continued existence is not economic collapse or jihad, it is our culture.
    They have been bruised and offended by the rigid, almost militant secularism and multiculturalism of the public schools; they reject those schools’ squalor, in all senses of the word. They believe in God and family and America. They are populist: They don’t admire billionaire CEOs, they admire husbands with two jobs who hold the family together for the sake of the kids; they don’t need to see the triumph of supply-side thinking, they want to see that suffering woman down the street get the help she needs.

  13. January 3, 2008
    Today’s message is long – there is so much to tell our readers and so little time to do it with. As my 2nd last message before I leave for my holidays (Jan/7 – Feb/22/08) I hope you will bear with me.
    Link Byfield’s editorial today from the CCFD is proof that more Canadians are finally agreeing with us – Official Bilingualism is a failed policy – Link recommends that we scrap it!! Music to the ears of all those who have fought this policy for years on the premise that it discriminates against the majority & is an expensive flop!!
    Bernard Lord’s “flying circus” – his attempt to consult with Canadians about the policy of Official Bilingualism was a complete farce – he only met with the groups who support Official Bilingualism and all these groups want is….MORE MONEY!!!
    Graham Fraser blames the universities & Bernard Lord blames Canadian parents!! Incredible!!
    Kim
    ——————————————————————————–
    Citizens Centre for Freedom and Democracy
    FIRST PRINCIPLES
    A weekly commentary by Link Byfield
    January 3, 2008
    Why not just scrap official bilingualism?
    By Link Byfield
    Newspapers before Christmas were dutifully reminding us that we have fallen short of a 2003 declaration by Stephane Dion, then a Chretien minister, that within ten years, half of all Canadian high school graduates should be bilingual.
    “Informing” might be more accurate than “reminding.” Did anyone pay attention to Dion’s compelling national objective five years ago? Yet here we are half-way to deadline, none the wiser, none the closer and all the poorer.
    The reason we didn’t pay attention then, and aren’t likely to now, is that all the way back to Ottawa’s Laurendeau-Dunton commission 45 years ago, such grandiose bilingual goal-setting all sounds the same and all sounds absurd. We tune it out.
    And for good reason. By any objective measure, official languages policy in Canada has been a colossally expensive flop.
    We are no more bilingual than we were five years ago, we are less.
    According to the Canadian census, 17.4% of Canadians claimed “knowledge of English and French” in 2006, down from the 17.7% who made the claim in 2001.
    Until 2001 that percentage had been creeping up by half a percent or so with each five-year measure. Now, despite all the preaching, propaganda and spending, bilingualism is actually in retreat.
    Curiously, nowhere have I been able to find this fact reported in the media since Statscan published its language tables on December 4. Nor can I find it in Official Languages Commissioner Graham Fraser’s subsequent tirade about federal neglect.
    Instead we got a lot of trivia about “allophones” being more numerous than before, French being spoken less at home in Quebec, that bilingualism among anglo teens (15 to 19) has fallen from 16% to 13%, and that among mother-tongue francophones bilingualism is static, while still creeping upward among mother-tongue anglophones outside Quebec.
    All of which means nothing. No one wrote the headline “Bilingual language skill falling in Canada.” Why not?
    The problem, as I see it, is this: that Canadians have been taught for half a century to think that official bilingualism somehow unites the country. It doesn’t, but nobody in federal office dares say so, because too many jobs and votes would be lost.
    The simple truth that bilingualism is a flop could be stated more easily at the provincial level. Unfortunately, the premiers treat it the same way Ottawa does: as a means of buying political support from special interest groups.
    The worst example of this is Ontario, which under its French Services Act is now allowing municipalities bordering Quebec to force local businesses to post signs in both official languages. (For more on this civil rights atrocity, visit the recent archive entries of http://www.galganov.com)
    It’s worth speculating what would have happened had Canada’s premiers united around Alberta’s Ernest Manning back in the 1960s and told Ottawa to stay out of provincial constitutional affairs such as language. Language rights had been retained by the provinces in 1867 for a good reason: so that Quebec could remain French, as it had been promised, and everyone else could remain English.
    This might sound less biculturally chummy than many Canadians are now accustomed to, but the Pearson/Trudeau alternative we have been stuck with ever since – the idea that we will become a bilingual country — is sheer fantasy. Why not expect all Canadians to play the piano? We are not a bilingual country, and never will be. We are a unilingual country with two bilingual provinces, Quebec and New Brunswick.
    Nobody knows how much we have spent on this pipedream. Ottawa always says it spends only about $1 billion a year, give or take, which doesn’t sound like much. But let’s add in the provincial and municipal program burden across the country, plus the regulatory burden to Canadian businesses and professions of translation and extra effort. Toronto accountant Jim Allan pegged the total imposed cost at $16 billion in 2001, and the accumulated cost since 1969 at $772 billion.
    Allan does not claim his calculation to be anything more than the best he can make given how little is actually published about the subject. It’s surely remarkable that none of our economic think-tanks has tackled so obvious a question. One suspects they might fear for their federal charitable registration. But a full and honest accounting is long, long overdue.
    Where exactly Prime Minister Harper stands on bilingualism is anyone’s guess. He can’t confront the national delusion head-on, that’s certain. I assume that until English provinces start objecting to the cost, he has to maintain the pretense it’s saving the country.
    Link Byfield
    Link Byfield is an Alberta senator-elect and chairman of the Citizens Centre. The Centre promotes the principles of personal freedom and responsible government.

  14. Although I don’t like harping about an old subject, regarding the CBC Editor’s letter against the CPC funding letter:
    – the comment I submitted on Jan 1st was submitted when ZERO comments were recorded (original post was Dec 27th, I believe);
    – when my comment first showed up on Jan 2nd (CBC folks obviously off for New Years Day), it was one of only 8 comments, all but one was negative toward CBC;
    – when I checked on January 3rd, there were 82 comments and mine was approximately the 70th comment…the majority were supportive of the CBC.
    Either CBC releases comments in a reverse chronological order or they release them in no particular order or they changed dates/time of comments or they fabricated the quotes.
    I submitted a second comment stating this and asking some other rhetorical questions about CBC bias and that comment has not been released. I wonder if I struck a nerve?

  15. BHUTTO HAD EVIDENCE OF PLOT TO RIG PAKISTANI ELECTIONS:
    http://tinyurl.com/2th8sf
    “” NAUDERO, Pakistan — The day she was assassinated last Thursday, Benazir Bhutto had planned to reveal new evidence alleging the involvement of Pakistan’s intelligence agencies in rigging the country’s upcoming elections, an aide said Monday.
    Bhutto had been due to meet U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., to hand over a report charging that the military Inter-Services Intelligence agency was planning to fix the polls in the favor of President Pervez Musharraf.””

  16. The Ottawa Citizen
    Published: Thursday, December 27, 2007
    Reaching bilingualism target ‘a long shot,’ adviser says
    Parents responsible for ensuring students meet federal goal: former premier
    Kate Jaimet
    Canada will “probably not” meet StĂ©phane Dion’s target of making half of all high-school graduates bilingual by the year 2013 — but that’s no reason to stop striving toward the goal, says the man charged with advising the federal government on bilingualism policy.
    “I think it’s a long shot at this moment. But I think pursuing the goal of having more children graduate bilingual is a noble goal,” said former New Brunswick premier Bernard Lord. “I think we must encourage our children to not only learn English and French, but to learn other languages as well.”
    Mr. Lord spoke to the Citizen after a whirlwind tour of the country earlier this month to take the pulse of French and English minority communities. He is to report his findings and make recommendations to Minister of Official Languages Josée Verner in January.
    The bilingualism goal was set in 2003 by Mr. Dion, now the Liberal leader, when he was intergovernmental affairs minister under former prime minister Jean Chrétien.
    Despite hundreds of millions of dollars spent by the provinces and the federal government on French- and English-language education since that time, recently released 2006 census data from Statistics Canada indicate that bilingualism among high school students is going down, not up — especially for anglophones outside of Quebec.
    Asked why the drive toward bilingualism appears to be faltering, Mr. Lord said while he is still gathering information, he believes parents bear a frontline responsibility.
    “I’ve always felt that the parents are responsible for the education of children, and parents decide if their children will learn one language, or two, or three, and if they will only rely on the school system for the whole education of their children,” Mr. Lord said. “The government has a role to play in education, but at the same time, parents have the first responsibility.”
    Mr. Lord said that he will make recommendations about education in his report to Mr. Harper next month. He also said he will recommend how much money the government should spend on bilingualism policy. The action plan developed by Mr. Dion in 2003 allocated $750 million over five years to foster bilingualism, of which $381 million was given to education.
    Mr. Lord said his report will also weigh in on the contentious issue of immigration. The 2003 Action Plan allocated $9 million over five years to help French-language communities outside of Quebec recruit francophone immigrants to bolster their demographics. But that policy has recently come under criticism from Parti QuĂ©bĂ©cois immigration critic Martin Lemay, who said that if the federal government recruits francophones to other provinces, it will harm Quebec’s strategy to attract French-speaking immigrants from among the same, limited pool of international migrants.
    Questions have also been raised about whether francophones who immigrate to mainly anglophone provinces actually continue to speak French, or simply end up blending into the English-speaking majority.
    Mr. Lord said that while he has an opinion on the controversy, “I have to keep that point of view to myself until I give it to the minister.”
    In the course of his consultations, Mr. Lord visited Halifax, Moncton, Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Vancouver, meeting with representatives of French and English minority communities, academics, representatives of the private and volunteer sectors and government observers.
    “The people that I met are people that care deeply about Canada. They feel that bilingualism is a fundamental value of the country, and it’s an asset for the country. They love both languages and these are people that are determined to make sure that we continue to build a strong future for Canada,” Mr. Lord said.
    He said the people he met in his consultations were optimistic about the survival of francophone communities outside of Quebec, despite 2006 census results that show the number of native francophones is in decline in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and across the Atlantic provinces. The census data also showed high rates of francophones who have switched to speaking mainly English at home in all provinces except Quebec and, to some extent, New Brunswick.
    Still, Mr. Lord said the people he spoke to didn’t express a lot of concern that the French language would die outside Quebec.
    “It did come up, but the people I met were people determined to make sure that survival occurred.”
    Mr. Lord said while immigrants from all over the world have brought with them a huge diversity of languages, the idea of Canada as a bilingual country is not outdated.
    “The country has two official languages, which means that government accepts that it will function in two official languages, English and French. In no way does that mean that it prevents people from speaking more languages, or only speaking one language,” he said. “Sure, it’s great when people speak both languages. It’s even better when our children speak more than two languages … Language is a passport in the 21st century.”
    © The Ottawa Citizen 2007

  17. For those of us who are working hard towards correcting one of the most damaging and unfair social policies ever inflicted on a nation, bilingualism, the news of another opinion that the Official Languages Act is a major waste of money and effort is welcomed and incentive to continue our efforts.
    I would personally question Mr. Lord’s report at the current time, not having seen it, because of what he has said in preview indicating that he has met with people that “…feel that bilingualism is a fundamental value of this country, and it’s an asset for the country. … these are people that are determined to make sure that we continue to build a strong future for Canada.”
    There are also people who are just as determined to have a very very large microscope focussed on this social policy and what it is doing to the unity of our country. We want to focus on many details that have been artfully avoided or hidden by our political leaders over the last 40 years to the point that non Francophones feel they are second class citizens in Canada.
    Condensing the many stories of unfair treatment because of language policy is the first hint in the Census of 2006 and now Bernard Lord’s report to the Minister of Official Languages due in January 2008. His report will be examined in detail by all sides to the disagreement.
    Mr. Lord coins a new phrase that I’m sure he will repeat again to argue his point which is “…Language is a passport in the 21st century.” I maintain that it’s not language but “…the English language is the passport in the 21st century.” Check the numbers of users Mr. Lord.
    K. P.

  18. Good tip Zip 🙂
    Any time I get to see this sniveling little mush bag Staples cut down by real military staff I get all warm and fuzzy-like 😉
    Staples is quite possibly the most pompous impostor since Gwynne Dyer. This little termite was soley manufactured by leftard pacificist NGOs to be the “expert” anti-US/anti war voice of the left….a crown previously worn by Dyer or Margolais.
    I laughed until I cried when I saw the ridiculous front he manufactured (the Rideau Institute) which is a blatant parody of the RIIA to give it some fraudulent “expert” “official” policy tank polish/credibility…nope just one large concocted sales pitch from Leftard NGOs to create a talking head “expert” who trashes all military endeavors.
    Take a bow Steve …but not too deep or a vet will insert a mine probe in you.

  19. The story begins at Michigan State University
    with a mechanical engineering professor named
    Indrek Wichman.
    Wichman sent an e-mail to the Muslim Student’s Association.
    The e-mail was in response to the students’ protest
    of the Danish cartoons
    that portrayed the Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist.
    The group had complained the cartoons were
    “hate speech.”
    Enter Professor Wichman.
    In his e-mail, he said the following:
    Dear Moslem Association,
    As a professor of Mechanical Engineering here at MSU
    I intend to protest your protest.
    I am offended not by cartoons,
    but by more mundane things like beheadings of civilians,
    cowardly attacks on public buildings, suicide murders,
    murders of Catholic priests
    (the latest in Turkey ),
    burnings of Christian churches,
    the continued persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt ,
    the imposition of Sharia law on non-Muslims,
    the rapes of Scandinavian girls and women
    (called “whores” in your culture),
    the murder of film directors in Holland,
    and the rioting and looting in Paris France.
    This is what offends me,
    a soft-spoken person and academic,
    and many, many of my colleagues.
    I counsel you dissatisfied, aggressive, brutal,
    and uncivilized slave-trading Moslems
    to be very aware of this as you proceed
    with your infantile “protests.”
    If you do not like the values of the West
    – see the 1st Amendment –
    you are free to leave.
    I hope for God’s sake
    that most of you choose that option
    Please return to your ancestral homelands
    and build them up yourselves instead of troubling Americans.
    Cordially,
    I. S. Wichman
    Professor of Mechanical Engineering
    As you can imagine,
    the Muslim group at the university didn’t like this too well.
    They’re demanding that Wichman be reprimanded
    and the university impose mandatory diversity training for faculty
    and mandate a seminar on hate and discrimination for all freshmen.
    Now the local chapter of CAIR has jumped into the fray.
    CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations,
    apparently doesn’t believe that the good professor
    had the right to express his opinion.
    (unlike the broad latitude given to the Islamists to spew their hate-filled raves)
    For its part,
    the university is standing its ground
    in support of Professor Wichman,
    saying the e-mail was private,
    and they don’t intend to publicly condemn his remarks.
    ============================================================

  20. OK children, its time to learn our numbers. When you start counting you start at the number 1, not 0. So, 1, as in 2001, is the first number, or in this case, year of the current millenium. Once we reach December 31st we go to the second number, 2, or in this case, the year 2002. That would be the second year of the current millenium. Then on to 3…..I think you should get it by now. We just finished getting to December 31 of the 7th year, or 2007 of the current millenium (the 3rd) and Vituvius is completely correct when he states that we are now in the 8th year, 2008, of the 3rd millenium. Anyone handing in their test papers with any different calculation will be scored with a big fat “0” and sent back to the 1st grade. Or is that the 2nd grade of the first millenium? Oh well, its all so complicated.

  21. Leave it to an engineer to explain it to the Muslim Student Assn. And a big Atta Boy goes to the university for not doing anything, which was what they should have done in this case.

  23. There is a poll at the calgary sun, -do you think the cold weather in the east is caused by gw-NO is way ahead.
    Last night, when entrance polls were talked about, global warming was never mentioned once. Hillory, in her speech had no emotion, but did mention gw once. It is not an issue in the USA.
    Dion’s plan for bilingualism is meeting the same fate as his action on the environment. Doesn’t he get anything done.
    Should be interesting watching the msm talk about how Hillory’s loss is not important, for the next 5 days. Even women deserted her. But, over 100,000 new caucus goers last night must mean something.

  24. Forgive me for intervening in the discussion of whath year of the third milennium this is, but I offer this speculation:
    The reason why the decades, centuries and millenia start on Jan. 1st of years ending with 1 is to square the final digit off with proper use of ordinal numbers. Thus, 2001 is the 1st year of the third millenium; 2008 is the 8th year, etc.

  25. Crumpled map solves mystery of German gun behind D-Day massacre
    A baffling mystery of the D-Day landings was solved by an amateur historian – after he found a crumpled map at a fair in Stockport.
    Experts have long disputed the location of the main Nazi gun battery which caused carnage on Omaha Beach, in terrible scenes which were recreated for the Hollywood film Saving Private Ryan.
    The Germans had built a decoy gun emplacement overlooking the area while the location of the real guns which blasted the beach, where 2,000 men lost their lives, remained unclear…

  26. thanks, ql1800 for your posts on bilingualism. I completely agree; it’s a travesty, an action against democracy, a utopian act that reduces the Canadian population, politically, to a class without political/economic power.
    It specifically gives official govt power only to those who are bilingual, and thus denies such power to over 85% of the population.
    If you cannot insert democracy by force then you cannot insert languages by force. To assert that someone must be bilingual before they can hold high economic and political office in Canada is a denial of equal rights. It sets up an elite class of mandarins in power, a class that rapidly be comes closed and self-ruling.
    The costs of useless bilingualism are enormous, including translations, requirements for bilingual staff in each and every post office, in each and every Air Canada flight and so on.
    And, above all, it denies full participation by all Canadians in the economic and political life of their country. That’s the travesty.

  27. After two years in government, Stephen Harper will have his very first meeting with all of the provincial premiers on January 11: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080104.LETTER04/TPStory/TPNational/Politics/
    January 11. January 11. Now why does that date ring a bell? Wasn’t something else going to happen that day? Wasn’t something going to be reported on that day?
    Oh, yes. Just by pure and utter coincidence, David Johnson’s report on whether to hold a public inquiry into the Mulroney scandal is due that day.
    The whole set up is more than vaguely reminiscent of another report (http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/007630.html#c221905that made the Conservatives look really really really bad over their record breaking spending on polling which was released during the senate hearings to hide the results.
    Now, there’s couldn’t be any possible chance that Johnson is going to suggest that Harper flip flop a fourth time on this matter is there? that despite Harper first saying he wasn’t going to do anything, then saying he was going to be guided by Johnson, and then saying he was going to hold a public inquiry… Harper wouldn’t flip flop yet again, would he? That couldn’t possibly be why the quickly put together casual first minister’s meeting without a set agenda (like all prior meetings0 has been scheduled for January 11, could it?
    No one ever said this government wasn’t clever at hiding from bad news. But perhaps too clever by half? Don’t expect the Conservative pliant media to pick up on this, though.

  29. Bali bomber feels ‘beautiful’ facing end
    ONE of the Bali bombers has written from his Indonesian jail that he feels so “beautiful” on the eve of his execution that “no words can describe how good the feeling is”.
    Mukhlas, the elder brother of the so-called smiling assassin Amrozi, posted a 10-page statement on the internet exhorting Muslims to show their support for him by turning out in mass numbers for his burial…
    A former Islamic preacher in his late 40s, Mukhlas has showed no remorse for helping to organise the 2002 bombings in Bali’s Kuta tourist district, which killed 202 people, including 88 Australians. Many of the victims were Muslims. He claimed on the internet he has sympathy “from all Muslims in the world” for what he did as well as the “blessings of God”. Earlier, the three bombers said in a signed statement smuggled from jail that their deaths would make them heroes to God and that being “thrown out of the country” would be “an adventure” and “a sightseeing trip”.
    “If we are executed, then our drops of blood that flow – with God’s permission – will become light for those good Muslims and will become hell burning fire for those who are not Muslims and the hypocrites,” they wrote…

  30. There is a very good reason why the bilinguals are Quebecois, they are only 7 million and they live on a continent of 300 million English people. Commercially everybody needs to speak English but the English do not need French. Therefore very few other than the Québécois are bilingual.
    Senior mandarin jobs in Ottawa need to be bilingual. Therefore what we end up with is Québécois filling those jobs. It becomes incestuous for the bilinguals in the Ottawa/Hull/Montreal area to fill those jobs. The West need not apply.
    Over the last half century we’ve seen the Quebec wing of the Liberal Party of Canada de facto become like the Baathist party in Iraq. It is the 80/20 rule of rule. It’s practically bloodline tribal.
    But like Huckabee is doing in the USA, the ROC middle class is waking up. As that happens we’ll get diversity of thought in our civil service and the best ideas from across the country will start to gain traction. Dion will start to look as old guard as Hilary.

  31. Liberal-socialists’ agenda: ‘hug-a-thug’, aka Canadian Youth Criminal Justice Act .
    “Ontario’s interim opposition leader, Bob Runciman, said yesterday, “The act still goes overboard to protect young punks.”
    The former solicitor general says it’s time that in serious crimes the names of so-called young offenders be released and that stiff sentences go with convictions.”
    Opinion: Enough of this ‘hug-a-thug’ approach
    By JOE WARMINGTON
    The Toronto Sun
    http://tinyurl.com/35448b

  35. Oooops. The article Maz2 refers to does indeed refer to Bob Runciman as “Ontario’s interim opposition leader” and not his actual title “Leader of the Opposition in the Legislature” because Tory couldn’t win his own seat.
    Typo? Lazy columnist? Freudian slip? Subliminal messaging? or a further push of the knife in the back?
    Poor John.

  36. Jimmy F, I’m glad to see your post about yesterday’s killing in Langdon Alberta of a home invader at 3:30 a.m. The QR77 News headline focuses only on the investigation of the homeowner’s actions, and state that the homeowner will possibly be charged with homicide. This really, really bugs me. Imagine waking up in your bed at 3:30 am to hear that there are invaders in your house. You’re terrified. You realize that there is more than one, and that the only way to fend them off is to take them by surprise, to incapacitate them, in order to protect your family. Heart racing, with great relief, you do so successfully. Your family is safe. You call the police. Now you’re under investigation, and may possibly be charged with homicide. The police are saying, “People are allowed to use whatever means necessary to defend themselves in a situation like this but it has to be the minimum.”
    And our politicians wonder why there is a perception that our laws protect the criminals more than the victims.

  38. “It is always costly and inefficient to choose men or to favour institutions on the basis of their ethnic origin rather than their particular aptitude or competence. Great industries cannot promote maximum efficiency by ethnocentric policies, any more than by nepotism.”
    Pierre Trudeau, 1965 (who obivously became better known for not practising what he preached).
    If I had a dollar for every lie told about Official Bilingualism in Canada, I’d be a billionaire.

  39. BB, it was an Islamic honour killing.
    “Wichman sent an e-mail to the Muslim Student’s Association.”
    Related from the Telegraph:
    “Don’t criticise Islam, says UN”
    Posted by Damian Thompson on 31 Dec 2007
    It didn’t attract much notice, but the General Assembly of the United Nations ended the year by passing a disgusting resolution protecting Islam from criticism of its human rights violations.
    The resolution shows a worrying acceptance of Islamic ideology
    Lots of non-Muslims voted for it – a sign that more and more corrupt Third World governments are identifying with the ideology of Islam, even if they don’t accept its doctrines.
    The resolution goes under the innocuous title “Combating defamation of religions” – but the text singles out “Islam and Muslims in particular”. It expresses “deep concern that Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism”.
    Wrongly associated? As of today, terrorists have carried out 10,277 separate attacks since September 11, 2001. They all belong to the same religion, and it ain’t Methodism.
    The resolution (which of course makes no mention of the vicious persecution of Christians) was pushed through by the 57-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which has been agitating for it for years. Naturally every Muslim country was among the 108 supporters, but it’s interesting to note how other countries lined up.
    Cuba, China, North Korea and Zimbabwe all voted the same way.
    ————–
    From infidel bloggers (ibloga.blogspot.com)
    “Muslims committed the huge blunder of revealing their vulnerability [all the rioting over a cartoon]. Now the world knows what hurts them. When you find your opponent’s weak spot, it is exactly where you want to hit him. If Islam is ridiculed publicly and systematically, it will be defeated.
    Muslim psychology is all pomposity and bravado. I give you my word that if Islam is ridiculed publicly and systematically, it will be defeated. Shame is a great motivator as well as deterrent. Do not underestimate the power of ridicule. This is serious stuff not a laughing matter.
    How much ridicule is enough? Until it hurts. The pain of shame must become bigger than the comfort of clinging to this false fetish. When you see their eyes are popping out of their eyeballs, their veins bulging in their necks, foam forming at their mouths, and they are ready to explode, you know that the remedy is working. Give them more. They will either die of heart attacks or they will come to their senses and recover from this insanity.
    Every one of us must become a cyberwarrior and mock Muhammad, Islam and the Muslims. Use your talent. Draw cartoons based on the hadith and the Quran. You can find tons of ridiculous stuff in these books to lampoon. Write articles, lyrics, jokes, plays, do whatever you can to ridicule Muhammad the prophet pretender and Muslims. Don’t heed to their howls and cries.”
    ——————–
    It’s all related. The seething snakes of Islam hiss louder and more often as Islam is exposed for what it is – institutionalised and religiously sanctioned hate and violence.
    Their terrorist front organisations, such as the MSA, CIC and CAIR, are doing everything they can in North America to shut down freedom of speech as it applies to Islam. Their UN voting bloc is doing the same internationally.
    They are working zealously to apply shariah (and this is the application of shariah) on the world. This is because Islam cannot withstand rational criticism, the application of reason, being mocked, and the unveiling of what the truth is about “the one true religion” and its psychopath prophet.

  40. I Agree Ted about the ads. The only way a democracy can operate at high performance levels is to have lots of choice .. .be it Health Care, education, other commercial products or especially political parties.
    What Conservatives need to do is to help the Liberals find a competent leader, otherwise Conservatives will over the next decade of power backslide into the morass that the LPOC has become. That is just the nature of things and only lots of healthy competition can prevent it.

  42. Get a grip Ted.
    It’s arguable whether they need to spend that much (650K).
    We are just glad that it’s not a Liberal party decision. We’re probably talking 10 to 20 times the amount for meetings in restaurants, paper bags of cash, phoney invoices, cover-ups, Rick Mercer ads, etc., etc.

  43. More ads from the Conservative government:
    From the Prime Minister’s Web Site (http://www.pm.gc.ca/)
    PRIME MINISTER RINGS IN NEW YEAR WITH GST CUT
    CONSERVATIVE GOVERNMENT FULFILLS COMMITMENT TO REDUCE GST TO 5%
    December 31, 2007
    Mississauga, ON
    […]
    “Reducing the GST is part of our broader plan to ensure Canada’s long-term economic growth and prosperity,” said Prime Minister Harper. “Under our Government, taxes are headed only one direction: down.”
    Since coming to office, the Conservative Government has taken action to cut sales, income and business taxes, reducing the overall tax burden for Canadians and businesses by close to $200 billion, and bringing taxes to the lowest level they have been in nearly 50 years.

  44. Ted; You should live in Sask and see all the crown corp ads that the NDP trot out before an election.Premier Wall says these are going to end and its about time.He should prohibit propaganda ads from the Sask Govt Employees Union (SGEU)before an election at the same time.

  45. Top Russian scientist: global cooling coming
    http://tinyurl.com/39xz7o (american thinker)
    …-
    “Maybe they found Lyuba because the ice in Siberia is melting from global warming,” said Chikara’s father, Misao Shimizu. “I find that very worrying.”
    Mammoth Could Shed Light on Warming
    Friday, January 4, 2008
    TOKYO – Frozen in much the state it died some 37,500 years ago, a Siberian mammoth undergoing tests in Japan could finally explain why the beasts were driven to extinction – and shed light on climate change, scientists said Friday. …-
    http://tinyurl.com/375ber (peopleonline)

  46. Byfield’s observations re bilingualism are accurate and his analysis is well-reasoned, and it may be true that the way to get rid of official bilingualism is for largely English speaking provinces to make this an issue. Unfortunately — without knowing the actual costs — too few people are aware of the unfairness and hypocracy in this policy. If you live in Ottawa, New Brunswick or anywhere near the Quebec border you are aware of the problems created by this policy, but otherwise I don’t think it is a big issue for most people. Of course it would be if anyone were honest about the cost, but there is a deliberate attempt to hid e the actual costs. I used to hope that there would be a way out of this oppressive and anti-democratic policy, but now I realize that it is kind of like the mafia and that the dollars we pay are kind of like “protection”, and that most politicians are too frightened to actually address this tyranny by the minority head-on. A couple of years ago the CBC had a “phone-in” re official bilingualism. Because I know that this is a most hated policy in Ottawa, I was interested to hear some of the comments. The program was a total sham — I believe they even had “plants” there to make sure the mssg. would get out about what a wonderful policy this is. It will take a radical shifting of the political landscape to get rid of offical bilingualism and I do not expect that will happen any time soon.

  47. To answer your question Ted: “That couldn’t possibly be why the quickly put together casual first minister’s meeting without a set agenda (like all prior meetings) has been scheduled for January 11, could it?” — I doubt it. Usually it is a very tricky thing to find a date when all ministers can attend something in Ottawa. I suspect that this was the only date available that would work for everyone. Have you ever tried to set up a meeting for eleven very busy people? Also, I would expect that between now and the 11th a clear agenda will be established with input from the attendees.

  48. Oh — one more point, Ted — don’t despair. Maybe Harper will indeed flip flop and cancel the enquiry. Then you can still raise a stink about it — even if the majority of the public at this point agree that a public enquiry is serious overkill.

  49. ted – your constant malicious comments against anything “Conservative’ suggests that you have a psychological problem. It has moved out of any reliance on factual or rational evidence; your posts are automatically malicious. I suggest counselling.
    No, the announcement of the GST tax cut is not an advertisement for the CPC; it’s an informational announcement of this gov’t. Would you prefer silence about the govt’s actions, because to announce anything, in your mind ted, is equivalent to an advertisement for a political party.
    So, that also means that any and all actions carried out by any govt, is actually not informational but an advertisement for and only for, a political party. Hmmm. Not very logical ted.
    I agree with nomdeblog about the incestuous set of bureaucrats in the Ottawa-Montreal corridor that has emerged within our dysfunctional bilingual policy.
    And, I agree with nomdeblog that a robust govt requires a robust opposition.
    Dion is not only an ignorant and arrogant individual who belongs only in the seminar room, but, the Liberal view of Opposition is incorrect. An Opposition Party’s duty is not simply To Oppose, for that would reduce them to being simple mechanical objects that squawk the opposite of whatever the Govt says.
    But that’s what Dion says is the Duty of the Opposition. To Oppose.
    Nonsense. A valid Opposition has the duty to CRITIQUE. That means to examine, analyze and sometimes fully agree. Sometimes add or substract. Sometimes oppose. In other words, the duty of an Opposition is to THINK. Not to behave like a mechanical reactive object.
    So, we require not merely a new leader as Opposition. We require an Opposition party that understands their role and is able and willing to carry out that role – of critical thinking. The Liberals are, alas and alack, unable to think critically. Poor ted, a Liberal.

  50. “When it was pointed out that previous governments have run similar ads to boast of tax cuts contained in budgets, Mr. McCallum said he couldn’t speak for governments back through time.”
    Gov’ts he was an MP in, and cabinet minister, and somehow now can’t recall the specifics…
    …right…maybe Ted can help him recall..

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