Reader Tips

Reader Tips 58 Comments

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SDA Late Nite Radio. Tonight, for your delectation and pursuant to our Saturday night contemporary music show, here are Imagination performing Just an Illusion (1982, 6:26).

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

Update: Prompted by a comment from Exetaz, hereunder, and in light of what SDA LNR has become, here for your delectation is our new official: SDA Late Nite Radio Theme Song 😉

58 Replies to “Reader Tips”

  5. Pain
    The economy is passing a kidney stone. Here’s one man’s guide to survival.
    By Bill Whittle
    Last Friday I was wrapping up my last day as the editor on Shootout. Five years, and 180 episodes, and I’d never missed a single one. They had hidden a cake with GOOD LUCK, BILL! for my surprise going-away party.
    Just before noon I felt a little . . . something. Five minutes later it felt like someone had punched me in the left kidney — hard. I went back to the edit bay to lie down for a moment. Things got a little better, then worse, then much worse. And then someone said they were going to drive me to the hospital.
    More at:
    http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YWE1YTg0N2I5OTQ1ZWNkYjFmYTNjZjQ2ZmMzYmM5ZjA=

  6. Hi
    I pop by this site occasionally, usually for entertainment more that enlightenment. I virtually never post comments or tips, but I’ve got one tonight.
    I’m a Torontonian, originally from the west. I generally don’t like or believe any politicians. I don’t agree with the cuts to the arts budget, although I’d easily buy into some sensible regulation of where that funding could go. I’m pissed that the whole country has been convinced that Harper is a westerner when he’s actually a chauncy Toronto kid, but I guess that’s the only way to get a Torontonian elected prime minister. I think that the NDP choice of Jack Layton is great, he’s such a dolt he could only do the party harm. The Libranos are in such disarray they’re no threat, but that’ll change, always does. Don’t even get me going on any of the partys ads. I’m not prejudice, I hate them all, but I’m OK with all that, it’s the way it has to be, they’re all important members of democracy.
    I’ll tell you what I’m not OK with. It’s the CBC radio. I don’t know what’s happening in the rest of the country, but the Toronto CBC radio is clearly trying to sway voters away from the Conservatives and seemingly towards the Liberals. They go all day, injecting negative commentary in every word, interviewing anti government guests (there’s no great talent in finding someone to interview that has the politics that you want to push). Anyway, it goes on at every turn, mostly with the local broadcasts.
    Who’s allowing a public broadcaster to do this? This is not being a political watchdog, this is clearly a huge anti Harper campaign. funded by the public. Imagine if the government could use public money to buy ad space to promote themselves.
    I’m not sure that I like Harper that much, but by goodness I hope he guts the CBC if he gets the chance. Who are the people sitting at the top of our public corporation, stealing our money to promote they’re own will?
    Did the CBC gasp it’s last breath with Peter Gzowski?

  7. The CBC is a political tool of the left, bought and paid for by (in part) many conservatives, and those who do not agree with CBC’s leftist content.
    Liberals have been kept in power for decades with the liberal (and Liberal..) CBC running screens for them.
    They must be in full panic mode now, with the Conservative sword of Damacles hovering over their heads…
    Fire. them. all.

  8. I don’t agree with the cuts to the arts budget
    Then by all means, go buy some Canadian art, or some Canadian music. I’ve bought lots of both when I could afford it and when I liked it.
    But right now, I want *my* money to go to food, new brakes and a winter car tune-up. Then…maybe a guitar–for me, not for someone else. Weird, I know; but I guess my personal greed knows no bounds.

  9. Cheers for the link to Christie’s column today! If ever the left in this country needed a copy and paste resume this gal has it!
    And I am impressed with Christie’s reserve wrt to the soldiers dying in the trenches comment, considering that Christie has BTDT and has the T-shirt.

  10. Sheldon Levin: “Did the CBC gasp it’s last breath with Peter Gzowski?”
    He was a major part of the problem.
    I appreciated your post, Sheldon, which was thoughtful–even though I don’t agree with everything you said! 😉
    I hope that you write to the cbc –http://www.cbc.ca/radio/ — and tell them your impressions of what’s going on. I’ve been writing to them for years and, unfortunately, their attitude seems to be “Who cares? You’re just a little pimple and we’re entitled–dontcha know?”
    On the other hand, as more people recognize their blatant propagandizing for the Librano$ and express their consternation–listeners from a political perspective other than pro-c/Conservative–perhaps they’ll sit up and take note. Now that the CPC seems within striking distance of a majority, methinks the CBC is listening a tad more carefully.
    Or, maybe that’s just wishful thinking. It IS disgraceful that the CBC is so blatantly and unfairly using airwaves paid for by the taxpayers of this country to promote their political party of choice, while debunking at every turn the party they least like–and which a majority of Canadian voters elected to form our government in 2006.
    Their tactics are akin to Tass and Pravda…

  12. Sheldon, you are coming out of the closet, see if this helps.
    “I was talking to a friend of mine’s little girl, and she said she wanted to be Prime Minister some day. Both of her parents, NDP supporters, were standing there, so I asked her, ‘If you were Prime Minister what would be the first thing you would do?’ She replied, ‘I’d give houses to all the homeless people.’
    ‘Wow…what a worthy goal.’ I told her, ‘But you don’t have to wait until you’re Prime Minister to do that. You can come over to my house and
    mow, pull weeds, and sweep my yard, and I’ll pay you $50. Then I’ll take you over to the grocery store where the homeless guy hangs out, and you can give him the $50 to use toward a new house.’
    She thought that over for a few seconds while her Mom glared at me, then she looked me straight in the eye and asked, ‘Why doesn’t the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50?’
    And I said, ‘Welcome to the Conservative Party.”

  13. Boots; thanks for the uplink to UN speech.
    Reverantdream; had a brother who “as I drove 22kms to hospital” give me an update on what it was like to have a kidney stone. Bill done a very good discreption.

  14. “The Liberal Party is “a wolves den”
    Yikes… those aren’t my words, they’re from Steve Valeriote, who runs the Liberal blog “Far and Wide”.
    In his rant against former Liberal heavyweight Warren Kinsella, he says some pretty enlightening things in regards to the current state within the Liberal campaign:
    “If the Dion team has an air of paranoia, lacking trust and outreach, can you really blame them, or does the blame lie with the posturing of others? Ignatieff and Rae have NEVER stopped running for the job, and despite the public face, EVERYONE, including Mr. Kinsella knows darn well that the positioning continues to this day. Has Dion isolated himself, or has his team merely reacted to life within a wolves den, where loyalties are divided, where nothing occurs on its own, it’s all part of a greater scheme?”
    Yikes. The Liberal Party is “a wolves den” for Mr. Dion? Not so happy a party I see, as we’ve been led to believe. But we’re starting to see the shiny verneer coming off the Liberal Party as a whole from just about every corner right now, as it’s already decending into name-calling, and blame placing arguments in the mainstream media, and via the bloggers online. Things are also falling apart at various events for the Liberals, with supporters even starting to get into arguments with the media when they start asking tough questions.
    There haven’t been any “wheels falling off” moments for their campaign… you see, you have to have air in the tires first, and then get things rolling before the wheels even have the opportunity to fall off.
    Since I can’t do it justice with my commentary, I’m just going to repost his post in full… but do be advised, HE DOES USE SOME NON-CC APPROVED LANGUAGE, which I’ve “blanked” out to avoid any filters. It’s a pretty eye opening post to the frustrations that are currently being vented within the ranks of the Liberal Party of Canada.
    Far and Wide – Saturday, September 27, 2008
    Please”
    http://canadaconservative.blogspot.com/2008/09/liberal-party-is-wolves-den.html

  17. Gilles Duceppe wants to give away the family jewels! He proposes that the Quebec government via Hydro Quebec subsidize as many people as possible to switch from oil to electricity in order, he says, to reduce our dependence on oil.
    Hydro did this in the past (bi-energy), but has stopped doing so for several years as the high price of oil encourages people to do this on their own anyway. Taxpayers in general would be far better off if Hydro sells any surplus energy to the States at high prices and then recycles a lot of the profits to the government. As it is Quebeckers are wasteful of electricity because it is very cheap here, especially compared to Ontario or the States. The price is kept artificially low for political reasons – even as it is we could be exporting more electricity to the States or Ontario if the demand here wasn’t artificially high because of the lowish price.
    I won’t even get into how our premier Charest gives away electricity to aluminum companies to create a few jobs in the hinterlands and Montreal. The companies are still polluting the St. Lawrence River, despite some measures. Belugas, anyone?

  18. Dear Sheldon from Toronto: I as a cattle producer will speak for all food producers. I am going broke growing your food for the supermarkets! In 1988 I got 87 cents a pound for my calves, last fall I got 92 cents, in 1988 the base cost on just my phone was 8.10 a month, now it is 52.00, is that a good thing, diesel fuel to feed my cattle has quadrupled since then. It is damn hard to haul round bales on a Prius buddy. I don’t give a f..k about funding some flitting fairy on a stage in Toronto or anywhere else. If tomorrow you Sheldon wake up and there are no more flitting fairys or vagina monologues, you will survive, but if tomorrow you wake up and the shelves of the Safeway are bare you got a problem there TO. Harper is sick and tired of money being wasted on crap, if art is so important BUY IT YOURSELF. I will prefer to feed my kids and help keep a civil society where we don’t fund ejaculating mexicans or dead rabbits in trees.

  19. Fingers crossed on this heads-up
    Liberal leader Stephan Dion will be one-on-one guest on CTS-TV Michael Coren Show, Tuesday Sept.30 at 8pm Eastern, repeated next day at noon.

  21. Some here on this blog (another thread) have talked about the Liberal Party imploding. Brent Weston asks:
    “The first question follows. Are we witnessing the (late) turfing of the Chretien government that should have happened in either 2004 or 2006 (but is happening now) and is similar to the 1984 Liberal thrashing that the voters aimed at Trudeau but hit John Turner? If 2008 is 1984, then is Chretien/Martin actually Trudeau and is Dion actually Turner?
    The second question follows. Are we witnessing the beginning of the end of the Liberal Party in a similar exercise that did in the Progressive Conservatives? If 2008 is 1993, then is Dion/LPC Leader(2009)/LPC Leader(2013??) actually Kim Campbell/Charest/Clark ?”
    I wonder if there is a third question, which, in a way, sidesteps the political party and instead looks at the political and economic infrastructure of Canada. Are we seeing the demise of centralism and a movement to decentralization in Canada?
    Canada very rapidly moved out of the original intent of the BNA act, which was decentralist, and into a government and economic mode that was centralized. Based around the economic and political clout of only two provinces: Ontario and Quebec.
    This made sense; the demographics of the 20th century and the two world war eras put about 80% of the Canadian population in those two provinces. And it was evenly divided; each had about 4 million. The other 3 million (total population of Canada in 1940 was 11 million) was sparsely distributed elsewhere. And viewed as irrelevant.
    What developed was a governance focused around the agendas of these two provinces. Bilingualism embedded that focus like The Great Wall of Canada, moving all decision-making within a narrow demographic based in the Ottawa-Montreal-Toronto corridor.
    Then, maintaining this grasp of power against the gradually increasing demographics and economic opening of other areas – meant an economy based on high taxes, socialist govt intervention in setting up industries (Bombardier, Quebec hydro, etc); socialist appeasement measures to fund the public, non-integration of immigrants, etc etc.
    But – the demographic and economic infrastructure of Canada has changed. Quebec population has stalled; the West now has a larger population than Quebec (yet 11 fewer House seats). The economic and population weight has shifted.
    The Liberal Party has not recognized this tectonic shift. Indeed, its attitude to this shift is to, forgive the term, SHAFT it, by simply taxing it…and taking the money back to Central Policies and demographics (Quebec and the Maritimes). But it doesn’t recognize the political shift; it has no will to empower this populated area of Canada. (They are all rednecks and knuckle-draggers)..
    Mulroney’s politics was also centralist. Chretien was centralist – and deeply corrupt, for his focus was only on himself and his business agendas.
    Harper has recognized that Canada’s economic and demographic infrastructure has changed. He is therefore moving away from this centralization to decentralization. Giving more governance and taxation powers to the provinces, ie, changing from an indirect far-off governance to local and more flexible government.
    A key communication system of decentralist power is – the internet. And blogs. That’s the voice of the people.
    The institutions built up by centralism are withering. But fighting. That includes the civil service, the CBC, the Senate…
    So, I wonder if it’s the Liberal Party, per se, that is imploding..or is it rather the ideology in which they have unthinkingly operated? And they are still operating in that mode. Dion, Ignatieff and Rae are all centralists.
    As for a new leader, I wonder if it would be Ignatieff or Rae. There’s Dalton McGuinty circling the camp.

  22. I think your argument is well-founded, ET. I also find it interesting that the most valid reason for centralisation, national defence, meets the greatest resistance from the Liberals, as though they are ideologically paralysed from grasping what could be the centralist tabula in naufragio.

  23. “Harrison went against the grain of contemporary thinking”
    “The Corpus Clock has been invented and designed by Dr John Taylor for Corpus Christi College Cambridge for the exterior of the college’s new library building.”
    …-
    ” Stephen Hawking to unveil strange new way to tell the time”
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/09/14/scihawking114.xml
    “One clock made by the legendary John Harrison, the pioneer of longitude, took 36 years to build and he was still calibrating it when he died at his home in London on March 24, 1776, his 83rd birthday.”

  24. Can you imagine B. Hussein Obama connecting with hunters and fishermen like this?
    (Via Contentions) Remarks from McCain at the Sportsmen Alliance 2008 Ohio Rally
    Finally, I noticed during our debate that even as American troops are fighting on two fronts, Barack Obama couldn’t bring himself to use the word “victory” even once. The Obama campaign saved that word for the spin room, where they tried to convince themselves and others that their man had left the stage victorious. Well, maybe this attitude helps explain why it wasn’t such a good night for my opponent. When Americans look at a candidate, they can tell the difference between mere self-confidence and an abiding confidence in our country. They know that the troops who are bravely fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan want to come home in victory and in honor. And we need a president who shares their confidence — a commander in chief who believes that victory for America will be achieved.

  25. (Via Contentions) Simon Scott Plummer, Muslims reject al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden
    In the wake of the Marriott Hotel bombing in Islamabad, which killed 60 people, it might seem perverse to express optimism about the struggle against global terrorism as espoused by al-Qaeda. After all, the Taliban, which provided asylum for Osama bin Laden’s network before 9/11, is resurgent on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border. Indeed, the tribal areas nominally controlled by the government in Islamabad have succeeded Iraq as the epicentre of world jihadism.
    Yet it is worth stepping back from last Saturday’s carnage to look at the history of terrorism. This shows that all such movements come to an end, whether through divisions within the leadership, repression or co-option by the state or, most important, loss of trust among the people they claim to represent. In a paper for the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), Audrey Kurth Cronin encourages Western nations to focus on the “plentiful weaknesses” of al-Qaeda and its associates. These she defines as “indiscriminate killing in the service of a largely fictitious narrative without a shred of hopeful vision”…

  26. ET, I fully agree with your analysis. I have discussed this centralist attitude with Liberal supporters but they are blind to stripping the assets and wealth creation of particularly the west and using those funds to prop up the rising socialism of Ontario and Quebec. In their minds this is okay as it is the duty of the “peasants” to help socialism in its march to the greater good. Remember Preston Manning and Reform arose over red Tory Mulroney’s refusal to address western concerns.

  27. Christina Lamb, Taliban revival sets fear swirling through Kabul
    Even so it is astonishing that a movement so reviled seven years ago could have regained so much influence. “The people are caught between a rock and a hard place,” says Dr Ashraf Ghani, who was finance minister from 2002-4. “As the government cannot protect them against the threat of the Taliban, they have to opt for an insurance policy of not blocking them.”
    Ghani has spent the past few months travelling round the country and says the Taliban revival is a result of the weakness and corruption of President Hamid Karzai’s government. “Karzai had never even run a two-man office before he became president,” he says. “What people want is order so they can manage their lives. Instead they have uncertainty and corruption where just a few become obscenely wealthy.”

  28. (Via SWJ) David Ignatius, What a Surge Can’t Solve in Afghanistan
    If there was one foreign policy issue on which Barack Obama and John McCain agreed during Friday night’s debate, it was that the United States should send more troops to Afghanistan. The bipartisan enthusiasm for this surge is so strong that there has been relatively little discussion of whether this strategy makes sense.
    So here’s a skeptical look at the issue, drawn from conversations during a visit to Afghanistan this month with Defense Secretary Robert Gates…

  29. Sheldon’s comment speaks volumnes You know the majority of comments here are partisan, but it is revealing also the Kate hosts a blog that a supporter of NDP can feel safe here.
    Sheldon you have confirmed that our complaints about the CBC for their blatant biased format has been well founded, when an NDP supporter picks it up as well.
    Lot’s of great Canadian artist up here in Northern Ontario.So Sheldon when you want to support the arts come up here to shop!
    Fred…thanks for that…it’s a keeper!

  30. If the Conservatives win a majority they will NOT deal with the bias of the CBC. It is very discoraging but they lack the gonads to do what should be done; Privatize the CBC.

  31. From: Augean Stables.
    Why the Arab World is a Failure: Honor-Shame and the Iraqi-Israeli Disconnection
    Recently an Iraqi parliamentarian came to Israel to attend the annual conference on Counter-terrorism held at Herzliya. Upon return, his fellow legislators voted unanimously to strip him of his immunity and some now want to execute him because of his deed. It’s hard not to view such a response as one more nail in the coffin of the Arab world’s ability to join the modern world. And the reason for this violent (and self-defeating) response? Honor!
    Me: Iraq (with its sharia-based constitution) has a $70 billion surplus, compliments of the US taxpayer while Israel, its most important ally in the region, is an enemy state. JIZYA.

  32. Good analysis ET. This shift back to original intent of Fathers of Confederation has been going on for a full generation. Up to 2006, Grits got away with ignoring it, with invoking the “wisdom” of Trudeau’s cynical centralization.
    Now it is so deeply embedded in their culture, with virtually all their leaders having come from Quebec, that they are too ideologically blinded to recognize its folly.
    Now they are in danger of being made irrelevant, with the NDP nipping at their heels to become the second party, the government in waiting.
    Luckily, Jack Layton will likely come their rescue.

  33. dave – exactly.
    As I keep saying, a centralist political ideology is based around the requirement for a central governing authority. This authority becomes a dominant ‘class’, a self-organized and self-inclusive set of people who become the essentially hereditary governance of the population.
    In Canada, this class are the professionals who are primarily funded, not by private enterprise but by the taxpayer. These are the bureaucrats, the education, the health care, the judiciary and the media.
    Because we have rejected privatization and therefore fiscal and service accountability in all these areas, we have actually enabled and allowed a massive yet isolated ‘SET’ of people to emerge as our governors.
    Because this Set are not elected, as they are in other countries, but are appointed, this means that they control their membership. We, the people, don’t control their membership. Or their actions; they are not accountable to us.
    Add in the institution of bilingualism, and this Set drastically reduces its membership to a Sect, a group isolated in fact and thought to the Toronto-Montreal-Ottawa corridor.
    They view the Rest of the Country as Resources to be used and taxed, for their socialist programs. And, as a population who have NO VOICE, and no RIGHT TO A VOICE – and must be kept quiet. Pacified with bribes. Benefits, extras, all flung at the people. To Keep Them Quiet.
    The HRC Commissions are necessary to this ideology, because the people don’t have a Right to Speak.
    Immigration balkanization and funding keeps these people in the three large cities and ensures that those cities remain ‘Liberal’.
    What happens when a centralist governance is confronted with a reality that is decentralized, with a population demographics that now brings in the West, that deflates Quebec?
    First, it’s denial. They’ll dig in their heels and try to continue The Old Way, which is deemed morally and intellectually superior.
    Then, it will be personal attacks (rednecks, whie trash, ‘just like the Americans’).
    But it can’t last. Reality is far stronger than ideas. If your ideas are ‘fiction’ and in a deep conflict with reality…there’s only one winner.

  34. Layton is proposing a baby bonus of $400 per month to be given for all children under the age of 18.Of course the big companies will pay for this,at least until they leave the country. It won’t cost the taxpayer anything,really, trust him.

  35. Posted by: Fred at September 28, 2008 9:23 AM
    Fred, if it’s true, brilliant. If not, brilliant.
    LOL.

  36. Layton’s promise of More Money as Child Benefits, will simply be paid, as usual, by the taxpayer. Where else would it come from?
    If it’s from corporations (and the NDP always think that Corporations exist only to give their money away to the People)..then the costs of goods and services will be raised by those Corporations, to cover those tax increases.
    How can someone promise the electorate what is essentially, their own money?
    By the way, I’m wondering how Dion, our favourite robot, is being programmed for the debates. Dion, admittedly, is the quintessical Seminar Professor, who is always right. So, can he accept advice? Is he being told, now, how to behave on those debates?
    Since he gets easily flustered, and has a quick temper, and won’t accept his theories being rejected…he could get angry. Hmm. I suspect that he’s being told to be Mr. Nice Guy.
    So, I wonder, will we see a Dion, who is going to agree with everyone, and claim that all their good ideas come, originally, from The Liberal Well of Essential Truths? Will he be a beaming Santa Claus, admonishing all his children how important they are to him?

  37. If the Conservatives win a majority they will NOT deal with the bias of the CBC. It is very discoraging but they lack the gonads to do what should be done; Privatize the CBC.
    Posted by: MJH at September 28, 2008 12:21 PM
    I’m afraid I agree. And while I, like others above, applaud ET’s analysis, I don’t think de-centralization is coming either.
    While I like and hugely respect Harper, I think he is pathologically cautious. With a majority, I think the meme will change from, “we can’t do anything ‘cos we have a minority” to “we can’t do anything ‘cos we gotta keep the majority”.
    I would be more encouraged if I saw a bold new inititave to de-multiculturalize, de-bilingualize Canada, and de-unionize the bureaucracy. And at the very least, radically alter the CBC mandate OUT of the news-opinion business.
    Oddly enough these “bold” moves would be very popular with the grass roots.

  38. me no dhimmi – I don’t think that Harper wants a majority..to have a majority. He’s already moved into decentralization.
    As for dealing with bilingualism – that’s an extremely difficult task. Why? Because Trudeau’s Charter was really about one thing. Only one. Establishing bilingualism. Almost the entire Charter is taken up with bilingualism.
    The perfunctory start of the Charter, with its ONE section, of about four lines, on ‘fundamental freedoms’ is irrelevant. And viewed as irrelevant by our HRCs.
    I’m against bilingualism only because I’m a realist. I think that the governance of a country ought to be based in reality. Not fiction, ie, not ‘wishes’. The reality is that Canada is not and never will be, bilingual. But, since we’ve set ourselves up as such, in a kind of romantic idealism, it has meant that over 80% of the population are removed from having key positions in our governance. How’s that for idealism?
    And, it has inadvertently set up a Sect (not Set) of governance based in the Montreal-Ottawa corridor.
    How to deal with this? I think by changing our Westminster system of governance, which is primarily by appointments, to elections. Return power to the people.
    Either get rid of the Senate or do as the Ausralians have – get it equal and elected.
    Do the same with many other governance positions. Return power to the People. Take it away from this Montreal-Ottawa Sect. Return power to the people – and that means that decision-making will be locally relevant. Not made by that Sect in Montreal-Ottawa.
    I’m still interested in how Dion will Play the Debates. I’m betting that he’ll be the Genial Professor, looking at everyone else as his undergrad students, gently admonishing them, insisting that all their ideas come, originally, from him.

  39. ET: “…the original intent of the BNA act, which was decentralist…”
    I’d be interested in hearing how you arrived at that conclusion.

  40. Bluetech, I take exception to your statement that most of the comments here are partisan. If I may quote the dictionary:
    “partisan: an adherent or supporter of a person, group, party, or cause, esp. a person who shows a biased, emotional allegiance. A fervent and even militant proponent of something.”
    I would not consider my support (nor that of many of the commenters here) of the CPC to be biased or emotional or zealous or fervent. It is rational and logical.
    Please…do not twist words out of their meaning like the progressives do, like the word “tolerant”, for example. I am not “partisan” but I do firmly support the Conservatives.

  41. ET: “Because Trudeau’s Charter was really about one thing. Only one. Establishing bilingualism. Almost the entire Charter is taken up with bilingualism.”
    It was never about bilingualism, it was and is about elitism.
    ET: “…over 80% of the population are removed from having key positions in our governance…”
    A necessary element of the elitism.
    ET: “The reality is that Canada is not and never will be, bilingual.”
    Bilingualism, a la Trudeau, started in the mid 1960’s, if the intent was truly to have a functional, European style of bilingualism, we could have had three generations of bilingual people in our country by now. Bilingualism is just another lie perpetrated by the ruling elite whose very name is a lie in itself – Liberal.

  42. China’s Hatefully Evil Exploitation of Blacks In Africa
    http://thecanadiansentinel.blogspot.com/2008/09/chinas-hatefully-evil-exploitation-of.html
    Excerpts from my source:

    Many perish as their primitive mines collapse on them, or are horribly injured without hope of medical treatment. Many are little more than children. On a good day they may earn $3, which just supports a meagre existence in diseased, malarial slums.

    We had been earlier to this awful pit, which looked like a penal colony in an ancient slave empire.

    Defeated, bowed figures toiled endlessly in dozens of hand-dug pits. Their faces, when visible, were blank and without hope.

    We had been turned away by a fat, corrupt policeman who pretended our papers weren’t in order, but who was really taking instructions from a dead-eyed, one-eared gangmaster who sat next to him.

    Imagine the international uproar and the violent Left-wing “demonstrations” (riots) if American or Canadian companies were involved in that sort of thing. But it’s apparently ok when Communists do it?

  43. glasnost – you are quite right that the original agenda of the BNA act was more centralist than decentralist (Macdonald’s wish), but, since Canada and its constitution was set up as a federation of provinces rather than a unified state, this politically defined Canada as having multiple areas (provinces) of fiscal and jurisdictional responsibilities.
    The provinces, rather than being subsumed within a singular national govt, remained in control of the key social responsibilities: health, education, housing, etc etc. And, in control of their own natural resources. Right there – you have decentralization, because both the wealth and the responsibilities of wealth, are defined as provincial.
    However, because of the demographics of the development of Canada, this federation moved, by convention, into a unified or centralist governance, with Ottawa collecting most taxes, and then, handing that money back to the provinces to look after their local responsibilities (health, education, etc). This sets up a provincial and federal govt that is not accountable to the electorate. After all, handing over money to the provinces with ‘no strings attached’ isn’t responsible to the electorate.
    The centralist position emerged strongly after WWII, esp. in the Royal Commission on Federal-Provincial Relations(1940). Before that, the view was that the central (federal) govt was a creation of the provinces (Compact Theory of Confederation). The Constitution could not be changed without the province’s agreement; not the other way around.
    This centralist position even moved into such areas as Trudeau’s NEP, which was a tax on what was essentially a provincial resource. And the centralist position is also within bilingualism as a governing policy that enables a strong central control of Canada.
    Again, I’m saying that this centralism was not in the BNA Act, which does set up a federation rather than a single state – and leaves resource wealth and responsibilities to the provinces. Centralism has emerged as a ‘political and bureaucratic growth’ on this basic infrastructure.
    The infrastructure itself could have gone EITHER WAY – towards centralism by setting up a central bureaucracy, by disabling electoral participation in govt (bilingualism), by taking over taxation and ‘equalization’ etc.
    Or, it could go the OTHER WAY, by acknowledging that Canada is a federation, and that wealth resources, production, and spending, are the prerogative of the provinces.
    That’s what’s happening now – as the demographics switch from Ontario-Quebec – to the West.

  44. Obama trying to silence his critics with Missouri “Truth Squad”
    —————-
    JEFFERSON CITY – Gov. Matt Blunt today issued the following statement on news reports that have exposed plans by U.S. Senator Barack Obama to use Missouri law enforcement to threaten and intimidate his critics.
    “St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch, St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, Jefferson County Sheriff Glenn Boyer, and Obama and the leader of his Missouri campaign Senator Claire McCaskill have attached the stench of police state tactics to the Obama-Biden campaign.
    http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/31390_Obama_Campaign_Throws_First_Amendment_Under_the_Bus

  45. Glasnost
    My grandfather, a welsh farmer with too many children was ‘encouraged’ to move to “the Canadas” back in 1928. The reason he continued to call this nation we call Canada, “the Canadas” was because in its founding lay the dual nature of Upper and Lower Canada. The BNA act wisely recognized that in a land as huge and diverse as Canada a singular centralist government would never work. Thus what we now call the Provinces got together to form a united front to the rest of the world. However in that confederation lay the explicit understanding that the ‘provinces’ were the senior level of government. What threw this vision off course was the admission of new provinces from what had once been exploited territories. How to reconcile the idea of former exploited territory with full provincehood has been much of the dilemma facing the country of Canada. The NEP was nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to reclaim the territories (Alberta) for ‘the Canadas’.

  47. 2001: Briony Penn* “wearing only panties and an ankle length blond wig rode a horse”.
    2008: Briony Penn** wearing a see-through Green Shift rides a Dionky.
    “Strange bedfellows”. Indeed.
    …-
    **”Strange bedfellows – or, maybe not
    Liberals, NDP should join as government if Tories end up as another minority, backers say
    Victoria-area Liberal candidate Briony Penn hears on the doorstep what she also believes: that it’s time for her Liberals, the New Democrats and the Greens to forge an alliance to defeat the Conservatives.
    “If we don’t unite the progressive voices, we will continue to be ruled by minority Conservative governments that get less than 40 per cent of the votes,” said Penn, the Liberal candidate in Saanich-Gulf Islands.”
    http://tinyurl.com/4rmwe6 (vansun)
    …-
    *”‘Lady Godiva’ protest assails Saltspring logging
    A field naturalist wearing only panties and an ankle length blond wig rode a horse through downtown Vancouver Monday in a Lady Godiva-style protest against logging on Saltspring Island.
    Briony Penn, five more bare-breasted women and another 30-odd demonstrators became a traffic-stopping sight for more than an hour as they circled the city block around the Howe Street offices of Texada Land Corp. four times.
    Penn said their action was the result of desperation.”
    http://www.savesaltspring.com/godiva.html

  48. Eeyore…I appreciate that correction, and will attempt better use of descriptive words. Perhaps I should have the dictionary closer.
    My post was especially directed to Simon who admitted his NDP support and ventured on to a pro CPC site (more cautious use of words)
    I commend him for his comment.His observations WRT CBC are important.

  49. Tancredo has a bill to ban shariah in the US. And now the Brit Conservatives want to do the same. Great start, but a lot more is necessary:
    From the Daily Express:
    A TOUGH package is being drawn up by David Cameron to tackle Islamic extremism. One of the key proposals is to ban sharia law courts from operating in this country.
    In an exclusive interview with the Sunday Express, Mr Cameron’s security adviser, Baroness Pauline Neville-Jones, said the Tories were determined to “integrate” British Muslims into mainstream society.
    Lady Neville-Jones, a former head of the Joint Intelligence Committee which advises the Prime Minister on terrorism, said: “We are not going to have any status for sharia courts. Absolutely not.”
    Outlining the Tories’ wider plans for tackling Islamic extremism, she added: “We will be tough. We will be really tough on the men of violence and those who lead them to violence. That’s the real gap between us and the Government at the moment.”
    She said the party would abandon the “blind alley of multiculturalism, which has deliberately gone down the road of separation for its own sake. We want unity and opportunity, despite difference, through integration.”
    She was backed by Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve, who said that multiculturalism had left a “terrible” legacy and created a vacuum exploited by extremists. The Tory plans also include:
    Banning a string of groups blamed for encouraging Islamic extremism.
    ————
    Of course, an informed public is the best defense. The real and actual history of Islam and its author, based on their own texts, combined with credible historical accounts, must be made known through the education system. With no white-washing (ie. approval through one of the Islamist organisations such as CAIR, etc.)
    Combined with the above, a moratorium on allowing Muslim immigration from predominately Islamic countries, along with strict deportation laws targeting hate preachers and shariah proponents, as well as monitoring existing mosques/Islamic schools, and limiting new ones from being built, are the next logical steps.

  50. Most US school textbooks disparage Judaism and Christianity, while promoting Islam:
    (Jerusalem Post)
    “It is shocking to discover that history and geography textbooks widely used in America’s elementary and secondary classrooms contain some of the very same inaccuracies about Christianity, Judaism and the Middle East as those [used] in Iran,” the IJCR said in a summary of the findings of the five-year study.
    In examining the 28 most widely-used history, geography and social studies textbooks in America, researchers Dr. Gary Tobin and Dennis Ybarra found some 500 instances of “errors, inaccuracies and even propaganda” on these issues. Tens of millions of schoolchildren in all 50 states use the textbooks, according to Tobin.
    The study compared language used in describing Jewish and Christian belief with that describing Muslim belief. “The textbooks tend to be critical of Jews and Israel, disrespectful about Christianity, and rather than represent Islam in an objective way, tend to glorify it,” says Ybarra.
    “Textbook publishers often defer completely to Muslim groups for their content [on Islam] because they want to be sensitive to Muslim concerns,” he explained. “So they write that Mohammed is a prophet of God, without the qualifier you should have in a public school that shows you’re teaching about religion, rather than teaching religion.”
    One example among the many cited in the study is in World History: Continuity and Change, in which a glossary entry on the Ten Commandments describes them as “Moral laws Moses claimed to have received from the Hebrew God Yahweh on Mount Sinai.”
    The same glossary describes the Koran as a “Holy Book of Islam containing revelations received by Muhammad from God” – without a conditional qualifier.
    “Islam is treated with a devotional tone in some textbooks, less detached and analytical than it ought to be,” the study finds. “Muslim beliefs are described in several instances as fact, without any clear qualifier such as ‘Muslims believe… .’
    “No religion should be presented in history textbooks as absolute truth, either on its own or compared to any other, or they all should be.”
    “All in all, there are repeated misrepresentations that cross the line into bigotry,” the authors write.
    The textbooks examined in the study are published by some of the largest publishers in America, including Pearson, an $8 billion dollar company which is one of America’s largest textbook publishers, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, a global corporation with revenues totaling some $2.5 billion.
    “Arab and Muslim interest groups… promote a pro-Arab, pro-Palestinian agenda in textbooks’ lessons on the Middle East,” the study finds. “For example, the Council on Islamic Education has weighed in during adoption processes to oppose the direct and unconditional use of the term ‘Israel’ for the Israelite monarchy in textbooks, lest anyone make the connection between modern Jews’ claims to Israel and the kingdom that existed in the same location 3,000 years ago.”
    http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1222017396250&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull

Proudly powered by WordPress & Skyrocket Themes

MENU

Navigation