29 Replies to “Reader Tips”

  1. From the Toronto Sun, Friday:
    “Fluoride lowers IQ and damages the brain, thyroid and bones and should be removed from the water supply, researchers and community activists said yesterday at a Queen’s Park news conference.”
    “‘Your policy is to put this known toxin into the drinking water, copying the stupid Americans’, Dr. Paul Connett, executive director of the Fluoride Action network, said …”
    “Health Canada, the Canadian Dental Association and public health officials in general say they have complete faith in fluoride’s safety and usefulness in promoting oral health.”
    The issue is this: some decades ago, fluoride was required to be added to drinking water. Now, if there is legitimate proof that it is harmful, it should surely be removed. But the REAL issue is that when governments get to make decisions based on dubious notions like “public health”, what happens if they make a mistake? If fluoride really were harmful, who in government would take responsibility for feeding us a harmful chemical for decades?
    Advocates of “public health” are prone to following any trend or dubious research result — just like public education is prone to follow dubious education methods, for example trying to teach reading without phonics.
    This is yet another reason why, when government gets out of hand and has the power to make so many important decisions about our lives, trouble can only ensue. This is more evidence that government should stick to its proper functions — protecting individual rights through police, military and courts — and respect individuals’ right to live their own lives and make their own decisions about health, education, and everything else.

  2. Saw them live in 1975 at Springfield Mass. Very loud, very smoky, kind of scary. I was a kid from Nova Scotia on my first trip outside Canada. Vietnam was just winding down, and there were a lot more girls than guys in the states at that time. Sometimes I wonder if I just imagined it. I spent a month down there and saw something strange every day.

  3. Just saw an Olympics segment (by the CBC) on myths about China. One of the myths, was,
    THE COMMUNIST REGIME STIFLES FREEDOMS.
    No kidding. As an example she drank a beer in front of a Chinese guard, and said, see, “its pretty free here”.
    No word yet on whether those languishing in Chinese prisons for political dissent, are in fact beer drinkers.

  4. oh yeah, I saw that Free Tibet bumper sticker on a Volvo once, I know ‘xactly what you mean.
    It’s totally free.

  5. PM STATEMENT ON “THE LAST HUNDRED DAYS” OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR
    August 8, 2008
    Ottawa, Ontario
    Today Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued the following statement regarding “The Last Hundred Days” of the First World War:
    “This year, on November 11, Canada will mark the 90th anniversary of the end of the First World War.
    More than 100,000 Canadians were at the forefront of many of the great battles in the final days of the war. This period, from August 8 to the signing of the armistice on November 11, is now known as “The Last Hundred Days.”
    Canadians are right to be proud at what those heroes in the Canadian Corps accomplished. Over “The Last Hundred Days”, Canadian soldiers advanced 130 km and 30 Canadians and Newfoundlanders earned the Victorian Cross.
    The “Last Hundred Days” did more than just mark the end of the brutality of the First World War it also marked the origins of the modern, cohesive Canadian Military we see today. In addition, the end of the Great War marked the dawn of a new confident and independent Canadian voice on the world stage.”
    …-
    “This is taken from the introduction of the series “Trenches: Battleground WWI”:
    **************************
    “For the average man and woman in the street in the early years of the Twentieth Century, nothing would have seemed further away from the world than war.
    In those years, men who dreamed of battlefield adventure would have been hard pressed to find a war in which to participate. In the year 1901, and in the 13 years that followed, the peoples of western Europe and the English speaking Americas were becoming consumers, rather than warriors. There were motorcars and motorcycles, airships, electric trains and submarines novelties with which to whittle away the increasing leisure time.
    An emerging middle class looked forward to more and more years and more and more progress, more prosperity, and more peace. There had been no war among the Great Powers for nearly half a century. And globalization of the world economy suggested that war had become a thing of the past. Middle and upper class Britons in particular saw themselves as living in an idyllic world in which economic realities would keep the European Great Powers from waging war on one another.
    For those with a comfortable income, the world in their time was more free than it is today. Until 1914, a sensible, law-abiding Englishman would pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the state. One could live anywhere one liked, as one liked. One could go practically anywhere in the world without anyone’s permission. For the most part, one needed no passport, and many people had none. It was a time of free capital flow and free movement of goods. There was more globalization before 1914 than there is now.
    Much of the final quarter of the 20th century was spent merely recovering ground lost in the previous 75 years. Economic and financial intermingling and interdependence were among the powerful trends that made it seem that warfare among the major European powers had become impractical and, indeed, obsolete.”
    http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2008/08/09/the-dark-frontier/#comments

  6. Nice to see CBC found Alexandre Trudeau to help them with their coverage of the Olympics. No doubt he’s an expert on China and Cuba too, for that matter, however, this is about sporting prowess. Why not have former Olympians to comment?
    Noted also they were pushing their ads for Little Mosque far too often.

  9. “They had flashing traffic signs in Tiananmen Square that read: “The police ask you: ‘Smile.'””
    Discovering Mao Stlong’s New World Order:
    “”One World One Dream” fully reflects the essence and the universal values of the Olympic spirit — Unity, Friendship, Progress, Harmony, Participation and …” (beijing)
    WTF did this MSM reporter expect to find in Red China?
    Surely he did not expect to find: “”Random.””
    “But this was precisely the thing. There was not supposed to be random here. The Chinese government had spent 40 billion dollars to outlaw random.”
    What was this “Random”?
    …-
    “The hard part of these Olympics — making sense of it all”
    “And still, there has been an overpowering sense of order. This is at the heart of China. Order. Soldiers seem to be braced at attention along every street in Beijing. The whole city feels locked down in a way that is different from past Olympics and Super Bowls. You cannot walk anywhere, it seems without getting redirected or patted down.”
    http://www.kansascity.com/495/story/741687.html

  10. “The whole city feels locked down”, blame it all on terrorism of one sort or another and extreme control.
    Wonder if the Chinese people feel they are living in terror as a fact of life in that Commie place? It’s name, “The peoples Republic of China”, would suggest a free and open society, of, for and by the people.
    Bit of a facade, no?

  12. Good column in Saturday’s National Post Comment section by Peter Foster: “Chairman Mo’s fantastic plan”. Good reminder of the darling of the Left’s dogma. Also close friend to Bobby Rae, so close, he’s adopted him as “Uncle Mo”. A must read.

  13. lizj – speaking of freedom and the authoritarian nature of socialism – what about the recent incident in Toronto where a child, with a heat rash on his chest, was instead defined by a lifeguard as the subject of parental abuse.
    http://parentcentral.ca/parent/article/475599
    This is hardly an isolate action.
    And what about our HRCs – where anyone can accuse anyone of ‘speaking with hatred’ and be hauled up before a court. And told to never, ever, speak ‘disparagingly’ of such and such again.
    Societies can’t be separated that easily into The Good and The Bad.

  14. ET a family I am acquainted with took their infant son to the hospital with an unusual bruise on his chest. The doctor immediately called social services and the couple lost all their children because the doctor assumed it was child abuse. A few days later a nurse, in another province, heard about the case and phoned the doctor suggesting that before the baby died check for hemophilia. The doctor refused but another doctor over ruled the first and found out that the baby had no clotting agents in his blood and the bruise was growing. It turned out that mom or dad had bumped the baby’s chest with the car seat strap while trying to put the infant in his car seat. The parents now have their children back but they are still under “observation”.

  15. Nothing can be as simple as good and bad. Acceptable should be in the mix too. Acceptable is up to us.
    Toronto is a hive of Socialism from City Hall to MP’s and MPP’s. It’s rampant so it’s become acceptable to enough people, it’s a morass, that’s the scary part and it’s all part of a “free society”.
    We are free to change it. Communisms iron fist doesn’t afford that option.

  16. Taking away peoples kids for any reason is just a natural progression of the socialist government, after all in their mind everything belongs to the state.
    The UK has already pioneered and implemented the removal of children from homes without true cause. At least until they got bad PR once the link between government adoption targets, financial incentives and children being removed by the state unjustly became impossible to hide:
    http://tinyurl.com/5ov9je
    “She recorded a social worker telling her and her husband Martin, 41, that even though there was “no immediate risk to your child from yourselves”, the council would seek a court order to place the child in foster care…..The case returns the spotlight to claims that social services are being heavy-handed in removing children from their parents, in order to meet Government adoption targets.
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6297573.stm
    Lib Dem MP John Hemming, who has tabled a Commons motion on the issue, said it was a “national scandal”…..Mr Hemming argued that social services departments are under pressure to meet targets set by government on children in care being adopted.
    In an Early Day Motion, with cross-party support from 12 MPs, he warns of “increasing numbers of babies being taken into care, not for the safety of the infant, but because they are easy to get adopted”.

  18. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080810.wpoliceshooting0810/BNStory/National/home
    Police said the officers were attempting to arrest an individual during a routine police intervention in the Montreal district of Montreal-North when they were surrounded by a group of about 20 youth.
    A few people allegedly broke away from the group and rushed the officers.
    According to police, it was then that one of the officers opened fire.
    Quebec provincial police will be investigating the incident.
    Oddly enough the mop ‘n pail’s comment section is closed on this.
    On the French stations, as told to me, it was a female officer who was about to be stomped, as she had been taken to the ground, who opened fire.
    Good on her, it this is true.

  19. (Esh, sorry for the blatant grammar/sentence structure (or whathaveyou) abuse above, still half asleep here.)

  20. Actually, lizj – changing a ‘democratic socialist system’ is as difficult as changing a ‘totalitarian or authoritarian socialist system’.
    The difference between hard and soft power, in retaining that power, is interesting. The reason is that the soft power socialist system is deeply embedded within the entire community. Within its economic operations, its legal operations, its kinship connections – it’s an enormous network that operates far beyond the capacity of any one individual to deal with it.
    Think of a plant that operates by spreader roots. Those roots, both the main ones and the links, take over the whole garden bed and smother other plants. That’s soft socialist power.
    You can dig up some roots (eg the political) but they are linked to others (eg the economic friends of the politicians) and to others..Changing the system is hard because of that networked infrastructure. It’s not up to the will of the electorate. There’s that whole system and its web of ‘networked relations’.
    Hard or authoritarian socialist power operates only by top-down force. It’s the Gardener, who comes through and weeds out other plants so that only one type grows. But if that Gardener weakens his vigilance, new plants will emerge, and often, quite beyond the capacity of the Gardener to control them.
    That’s what is happening in China – a bottom up emergence of new plants, that are quite beyond the capacity of a centralist authoritarian govt to control. So, China has moved into capitalism, into allowing private property (something Canada doesn’t have)..and it will move more and more into democratic freedoms.
    But we here in Canada, with out soft embedded socialism, are losing control over our lives as our own socialist network expands.

  21. ET, I like your gardening analogy. A particularly pernicious characteristic of soft socialism is its specious appeal to indolent minds. Those that seek political power simply for the sake of power (ie contemporary Liberals) have had a very easy-sell with the do-your-own-thing and we-will-take-care-of-you message. Hopefully some of the harmful effects of the Trudeaupia Plant are becoming apparent and we can start to control this noxious weed.

  22. nv53: regarding floride in water. It occured to me the other day. What private company (dental association) would push something so strongly that would lose them millions in business if it really worked? Something doesn’t add up about that. It’s like the drug companies pushing to have prozak added to the water for free, it just would never happen, unless maybe the dental association has shares in the floride industry.

  23. From the Dept. of “Told You So”:
    Mao’s Red Orympics is a Potemkin (fake) village.
    Giant foreworks faked.
    Fireworks photoshopped (?).
    “The trick was revealed in a local Chinese newspaper, the Beijing Times, at the weekend.”
    Mao Stlong say, 29 glaphic footplints not calbon footplints. Tlick, tlick goody goody.
    …-
    Beijing Olympic 2008 opening ceremony giant firework footprints ‘faked’
    Parts of the spectacular Beijing Olympics opening ceremony on Friday were faked because of fears over live filming, it has emerged.
    As the ceremony got under way with a dramatic, drummed countdown, viewers watching at home and on giant screens inside the Bird’s Nest National Stadium watched as a series of giant footprints outlined in fireworks processed gloriously above the city from Tiananmen Square.
    What they did not realise was that what they were watching was in fact computer graphics, meticulously created over a period of months and inserted into the coverage electronically at exactly the right moment.
    The fireworks were there for real, outside the stadium. But those responsible for filming the extravaganza decided in advance it would be impossible to capture all 29 footprints from the air.”
    http://tinyurl.com/5r5dh3 (telegraph)

  24. “I no longer give a stuff whether left-liberal types agree with my views on global warming. However, I do expect every last one of them who claims to value the freedom to speak one’s mind, to defend my right to air them.”
    …-
    “‘To greens, I was worse than a child abuser’
    Martin Durkin’s documentary ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’, aired on Channel 4 last year, enraged the green lobby by claiming human activity wasn’t behind global warming. Ofcom, the TV regulator, received 265 complaints and last month ruled that its writer and director lacked impartiality. However, Ofcom ceded that, despite “certain reservations”, it did not believe audiences had been “materially misled”. Writing for the first time since the documentary was screened, Durkin tells ‘The Independent on Sunday’ why he stands by his film in the face of continued criticism.
    The fuss over Swindle is a bit like Fatal Attraction: every time I think it’s over, up pops Glenn Close, looking rather like George Monbiot of The Guardian in a wig, and takes another swipe at me with a kitchen knife.
    The latest dramatic episode is Ofcom’s adjudication on the many complaints about the film.”
    http://tinyurl.com/69q8un (independent)

  25. Joe: “The parents now have their children back but they are still under ‘observation.'”
    The parents did nothing wrong, and THEY’RE under observation?
    I think the doctor who blew the whistle and the Children’s Aid should be under observation. But that’s what’s wrong with the whole dysfunctional and dangerous system: Just the hint/the allegation of a wrong-doing is the punishment.
    YOU’RE under observation and it’s difficult to prove you’ve “improved,” seeing as you weren’t guilty in the first place.
    Yup. Down Alice’s Rabbit Hole again. (To the tune of Stuck in the Middle Again):
    Chorus:
    Busybodies to the left of me,
    HRCs to the right…
    ‘Down Alice’s Rabbit Hole again…

  26. As they were not showing any NASCAR on the boob tube today I actually tried to watch some Olympic coverage (but not on CBC). Watching the rowing I thought ” Cripes, that camera man aught to clean his lens” as it looked like he had taken the camera out of an air-conditioned truck and it was fogging up. Then I saw some sailing on another channel and saw the same type of image. That isn’t fog hanging over Beiging but smog. I found myself, sucking in air even though I wasn’t there, let alone competing in a physical activity.
    I’m certainly glad reducing my carbon footprint is going to make a difference there. /sarc

  27. A witty article on our foes.
    Crunch time for Canada’s human-rights marsupials
    George Jonas, National Post
    Published: Saturday, August 09, 2008
    Elsewhere, I wrote about a smart kangaroo in Bathurst Island, Australia, that jumped on the racetrack in the middle of the straightaway just as the stock cars were rounding the corner. Roo’s smart move wasn’t jumping on the track, of course. That was a stupid move. The smart move was for it to look over its shoulder as the racers came thundering down the backstretch, and leap out of the way again. It not only saved itself, but landed a starring role on the Internet.
    http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=710747

  28. A witty article on our foes.
    Crunch time for Canada’s human-rights marsupials
    George Jonas, National Post
    Published: Saturday, August 09, 2008
    Elsewhere, I wrote about a smart kangaroo in Bathurst Island, Australia, that jumped on the racetrack in the middle of the straightaway just as the stock cars were rounding the corner. Roo’s smart move wasn’t jumping on the track, of course. That was a stupid move. The smart move was for it to look over its shoulder as the racers came thundering down the backstretch, and leap out of the way again. It not only saved itself, but landed a starring role on the Internet.
    http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=710747

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