Reader Tips

Like Elvis, Cliff went all soft and gooey in the 60s. Still, I like the title song from his 1963 Elvis-esque flick "Summer Holiday"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ0CFXSh_iY

Here's a tip:

Link:

A cadre of small-town Canadian politicos is standing by its invitation to a “pig roast” fundraiser that depicts the fiery moments after United Airlines Flight 175 slammed into the World Trade Center South Tower.

The horrific imagery was nothing more than an invite for a $50 a head Saskatchewan Party barbecue featuring 9/11 hero Richard Picciotto — a man billed as the highest-ranking firefighter pulled alive from the WTC rubble.

Both Picciotto and the FDNY denounced the use of 9/11 imagery as in “bad taste” but the organizers were not deterred.

Kate, heads up: Bernadette Dorn is headed your way to protest Israel's treatment of Palestinians. Again. No word on whether Billy Ayers will join her. Via Aaron Klein.

Thanks for the memories, Vitruvius. I was madly in love with Cliff Richard at one time - 1960's. I played "Apache" while I was over at that site; it really reminded me of the way the theme song from "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" was made: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3K5g7xKz_A

I never expected to see the above as the workshop for that haunting theme song.

Just great:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/03/obama-supports-dna-sampling-upon-arrest/

Not conviction. Simply upon arrest, mind you.

Good stuff Vit--thanks!

Can't beleive no one is concerend with the 45,000 Canadguns who will soon become Indians.

My dad told a corny joke about that. Tecumseh walks in an insurance office to get a drivers license. "Nationality?" asks the clerk. "Engine" replies Tecumseh.

Brad fan - thanks for the link - this is now up on the Fox News site: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,588879,00.html?test=latestnews

The story has the Canadian PM in the headlines but names Brad Wall in the body of the article - writers who do little reasearch are not limited to Canada!

No one seems very impressed with this poor choice for a flyer advertizing a fund raiser; I am not impressed either. What were they thinking??

Posted by: Rosalind at March 12, 2010 12:50 AM "Not conviction. Simply upon arrest, mind you."

Did anyone else hear the announcement that drivers will now be able to be pulled over without cause and administered a breathilizer or blood test at any time? Completely random stops.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/10/05/random-breathalyzer-drunk-driving-test-law.html#socialcomments

http://www.bloggingcanadians.ca/LiberalBlogs/random-breathalyzer-tests-in-canada/

No-One,

Don't worry. It will not make any difference.

Police are strapped for time. They are good at reading attitude in the way a car moves. It you draw attention by your driving 'manner', you get attention.

Otherwise, motor on as usual.

Is Iraq's most recent past in effect a revolution? Would calling it a revolution win the support William Ayers? Would Ayers support help B. H. Obama with his abandonment issues? Read more at http://thebailblog.blogspot.com/.

This is a matter of civil liberties - MADD has gone mad. I deplore drinking and driving as much as the next person. this is about being able to pull anyone over they want for any reason and search the person and the vehicle. I do not recall MADD being on my voting ballot. Also, the proposal allows the cops to haul you down to the hospital for a blood test to boot.

Impaired driving has been on the decline for more than 25 years in Canada. Between 1981 and 2002, the rate of people charged with impaired driving decreased by 64 per cent, according to Statistics Canada. Between 2003 and 2007, the rate decreased by another eight per cent.

There are other motives - this is a huge opening for a very slippery slope.

http://toronto.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20080627/drug_driving_080627/20080627/?hub=TorontoNewHome

Posted by: No-One at March 12, 2010 1:36 AM
"Did anyone else hear the announcement that drivers will now be able to be pulled over without cause and administered a breathilizer or blood test at any time? Completely random stops."

No, but I was a big rig driver here in the states for 15 years, and subject to that same. Though I was never tested on the road (I assume most would be given at scale houses), it was an accepted intrusion, because we are professionals with a greater burden of responsibility: trucks win just about every time. In practice, whatever company drivers are contracted with usually tested frequently, via the required safety department (to comply with DOT rules), and looking out for their safety rating that impacts insurance premiums.

However, I see no benefit for treating non-commercial drivers the same, except to add another layer of bureaucracy in the quest to generate revenue, and to further cow a willing populace (It's the LAW!). Not to mention the bonus of a power trip to those maybe 2% of officers who enjoy one.

Flying under the radar is definitely an art I've been refining these many years. Not because I ever did anything wrong, unless not wanting to attract attention, much like wanting to be left the hell alone, is going to be made illegal by the thought police.

Sort of what I said.

I was also a furniture van driver in the lower mainland during the 70s and eighties.

Fly under the radar..non - aggressively and we will be left alone.

I had to giggle at this comment from WUWT:

"Is Paul Ehrlich still alive?"

"I thought he got eaten during the great worldwide starvation in 1984."

Weaver Bird Sings. Skiers exult.
…-

“Warm winters here to stay

By BILL KAUFMANN, Calgary Sun”

“University of Victoria climatologist Dr. Andrew Weaver said even without El Nino, the general warming trend is clear, with records likely to be set only in one direction.

“We expect as we move forward, the likelihood of breaking this record increases, while the likelihood of breaking cold records decreases,” said Weaver, an author of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

He said the melting effect of the mild wwinter(sic) on Arctic ice — already being rapidly depleted by man-made global warming — will in turn impact our weather.”

http://www.calgarysun.com/news/alberta/2010/03/11/13199301.html
…-

“Late blast of winter lashes Metro Vancouver

METRO VANCOUVER — A late blast of winter hit Metro Vancouver Thursday blanketing parts of the region in snow and bolstering the snow pack on local ski hills just in time for the 2010 Paralympics.

Residents living at higher elevations such as Coquitlam and Burnaby awoke to several centimetres of snow on the ground and shuttle buses replaced the articulated bus service at Simon Fraser University because of snow covered roads on Burnaby mountain.

Meanwhile, the region was also battered by strong winds as Environment Canada issued a wind warning for areas around the Strait of Georgia and the North Coast Thursday. Winds of 70 km/h were recorded on the South Coast while up towards North Vancouver Island and Haida Gwaii winds reached 100 km/h. ”

” … residents of the West Coast were ready to brag about an early spring with cherry blossoms in full bloom.

However, since Sunday temperatures in Vancouver have dropped below seasonal norms. The city dropped to -1 Celsius on Tuesday for the first time in two months.”

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Late+blast+winter+lashes+Metro+Vancouver/2670900/story.html

No-One - No news here, for years now various provincial governments have passed laws allowing for schools to feed your daughters birth-control pills, and fill up the boy's pockets with condoms and how to make good use of them; with either gender. They also have the right to procure an abortion for your pregnant daughter, and without having to notify you, the parent. And they do it without so much as a howdy-do. Where's the outrage No telling what comes next. Rousseau, Marx, Dewey etc. would be proud. Am I sounding too prudish here? I'm sure I'll hear from someone about my puritanical ways.

Bureaucracy never ends, it must be carved out like cancerous tumor:

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2673045

Daniel Hannan on the Canadian seal hunt: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100029594/canadian-politicians-gorge-on-seals/

*
ah, yes... dalton mcguinty's "revenue neutral"
harmonised sales tax.

ontario taxpayers get screwed over yet again.

*

No-One said "This is a matter of civil liberties - MADD has gone mad. I deplore drinking and driving as much as the next person. this is about being able to pull anyone over they want for any reason and search the person and the vehicle. I do not recall MADD being on my voting ballot. Also, the proposal allows the cops to haul you down to the hospital for a blood test to boot."

You couldn't predict this move after the passing of the long gun registry which allows the police to enter any home listed in the registry database without just cause and without warrent? Slippery slope indeed, my friend. How many other areas of our lives will they degrade our liberties in? How long until people wake up and find that we are living in a totalitarian dictatorship where people are petrified of their government and trying to keep their heads down to avoid being persecuted next?

larben:

Give us a link where we can see the laws that allow a High school to feed a child birth control pills and/or condoms, or procure an abortion without the parent or guardian's consent. That's total BS and you know it!

km:

I don't know where some of you yahoos and rednecks get your reasoning. MADD is mostly concerned with teens that drink and drive, nothing more.
16 year old Kids are driving a vehicle on a public road that's paid for by the taxpayer. Most provinces have a period of probation for new drivers. They have no experince, they pose a risk for all of us. So what if kids have booze in the car that's illegal, or drugs that are also illegal?
So what you are proposing is that cops should just turn a blind eye and wait until they (kids) hit a concrete wall or a power pole, at which time the highway patrol can take the booze while the mortician removes the bodies from the wreck.
I think maybe the cops need to pull some of you over and give you the blood test. A "brain test" may also be in order. I would much rather have my kid searched by a cop than have him returned to me in a plastic bag.

Yahoos and rednecks? Grow up Joe. Anyway, it turns out that while MADD was at one time principally concerned with drunk driving, now that said problem is far less significant than it once was they are turning into prohibitionists in order to continue to (in their minds) remain relevant and, of course, funded.

"Experience has established that institutions, which at the outset were useful, often end by becoming intolerable abuses owing to the simple fact that everything around them has changed [...] and they have not."
-- Wilfrid Laurier

The natural end result of socialism: the religion of the stomach.
...-

"Zimbabwe's starving people eat dead elephant (Warning Graphic)

For us it is a saddening sight - a magnificent bull elephant struck down in his old age. But for the starving of Zimbabwe, it was little short of a miracle. The carcass provided a vital source of food, and hundreds of desperate villagers in the Gonarezhou National Park descended on the dead animal within minutes of its discovery. Using machetes, axes and knives made from tin cans they set upon the six-ton carcass, which was found deep in scrubland.

(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk"
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2469544/posts
...-

"Socialism Made Easy : Holidays and Religion

If a religion cannot enforce its moral teachings upon its votaries it ... friend, Socialism is a bread and butter question. It is a question of the stomach; it is"
www.marxist.net/ireland/connolly/socialism/ch3.htm

Great, I have to be subjected to random cop-stop-and-search because Citizen Joe can't be bothered parenting his kid.

So Joe wants a police state. Must be the "if is saves one child" syndrome again. Getting pulled over for probable cause is one thing but to get pulled over and subject to drug/booze testing is entirely different. It is the same as being stopped and searched on the street because you just might have a weapon and want to rob a bank or something. Minority Report redux.

Correct, Texas Canuck. If an officer of the law observes the operator of a potentially lethal vehicle behaving in a dangerous manner on a public roadway, then it is completely legitimate for said officer to inquire further into the nature of that matter. However, there must be cause: random interception is a violation of the presumption of innocence.

MADD has eroded human rights in US and Canada more than any other special interest group.

Even murderers and rapists have right to remain silent - drivers don't, thanks to MADD.

Even bank robbers have a right to not be arbitrarily detained - drivers don't, thanks to MADD.

Why stopping at driving? Imagine how much drugs, how many guns and how many illegal immigrants and parole/restraining order violators could be detected if only police had power to stop people arbitrarily in the streets, swab their hands, search their pockets, check their papers. How many grow ops could be busted if police could kick down the doors at random?

But go ahead, make my day.

SDA Administration Note: I have unpublished your 2:08 comment, "ivbinconned", because that was too long an extract of copyright material to be allowed under fair use principles. If I have been in error, and said material is not copyright, or you own the copyright, then please let me know and I can republish your comment.

Absolutely, Vitruvius et al. Black Mamba on Joe the Compliant Citizen, bingo!

Quick anecdote: A lovely young Indian lady, who serves at a Indian Restaurant my wife and I frequent in Vancouver, told us she was stopped, as she drove home after work at about 10pm, THREE times in ONE week for no reason whatsover. It was during the State Circus, but as she was driving south well away from city centre there could be no conceivable security issues. I asked her if she queried them. She sighed saying she was tired and just wanted to get home to her family (incl. two young children).

Always question authority -- but always obsequiously, of course.

United Nations' Frauds: AGW & Swine Flu, UNICEF, etc.

Down with United Nations.
...-

"Reconstruction of a Mass Hysteria
The Swine Flu Panic of 2009

Swine flu kept the world in suspense for almost a year. A massive vaccination campaign was mounted to put a stop to the anticipated pandemic. But, as it turned out, it was a relatively harmless strain of the flu virus. How, and why, did the world overreact? A reconstruction. By SPIEGEL staff."

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,682613,00.html

Larry Lloyd, thanks for the reminder of Cliff's Summer Holiday. What a sweet, happy song. It brings back teenage memories...

Thanks, Vit, for Please Don't Tease. I don't remember the gritty Cliff Richards. He's always seemed super-scrubbed and fresh-faced, even at the age of 70.

I like him!

larben: "Where's the outrage?"

You seem new here -- BTW, welcome! Since 2005, I've chronicled my outrage here at SDA about the easy access the "educational" (sic and sick) system affords underaged girls to birth control and abortion, without parental consent.

I've been there, when my daughters were younger. I raised Cain -- and half my little town loved me (but wouldn't be seen talking to me in public) and the other half hated me.

Joe Citizen: There ain't no law, it just happens. (How do I know? I have a friend who's a principal and she told me.) 'Neat, eh? 'No law protecting our kids from this propaganda -- and abuse -- either.

When I asked the school, the public health nurse, and, finally, the Chief Medical Officer of Ontario (to whom I was referred by the public health nurse) what gave them the LEGAL right to give underaged girls access to "the pill" and abortions (without parental consent), his answer was disingenuous: He wrote back that, not to worry, the new law being enacted by the NDP would make all of this legal for FOURTEEN YEAR-OLDS. I had asked about kids in grade 7 and 8 (definitely younger than 14).

It was war! And it was ugly. I lost a lot of "friends," BUT, I did get the handing out of "grab bags" of contraceptives to grade 7 and 8 kids stopped in my local school. Too many parents have NO idea what's going on, are too busy, or just don't care.

Our poor kids. We're as bad as the Mayans who threw their kids into the furnaces. 'Same nasty sacrifice because the adults refuse to be responsible and accountable for their own behaviour.

Kyrie Eleison.

Larben - I do not know about the rest of the country, but in BC a minor can go to clinics, created for the sole purpose, of giving minors of any age annonymous STI and pregnancy testing, they also give out birth contol pills and condoms to any minor with no questions asked and parents are definately not informed - they are called street clinics in my area.

If a parent believes their teenage child is going to drink or drug while driving, don't buy them a car and if you suspect they are with someone who may drink and drive - call the cops and report the driver. No need to subject the entire driving population to random stops anytime the cops feel like it. BTW - this would be a great way to collect DNA - assuming a persons mouth touches the breathilizer tube (?) - DNA is successfully collected from cigarette butts.

Neilsen has published a list of the top 100 websites in the world.In the media/new section, the list, which is based on unique visitors, is:

CNN: 44.4 million
BBC: 35.0 million
NYT: 23.0 million
Fox News: 18.0 million

Make of that what you will.

A link, please, Sting? Otherwise how are we to make anything of
it, without any information on context, scope, and methodology?

I just read this comment on the new rules re: vitamins - does anyone here know if this is true?

'Saddle up the Mounties and sound the alarm, boys -- someone's been caught selling vitamins north of the border.

Canadian health officials are telling pharmacists to pull thousands of perfectly natural supplements from store shelves, as new regulations kick in that they claim will bring order and safety to the vitamin industry.

In reality, all they've done is give Big Pharma a chance to tighten the death grip it has on modern medicine. And as those drug companies pad their profits, supplement makers are caught up in a bizarre Catch-22 that could lead to job losses and business failure.

The new rules require supplement makers to have a license to sell their vitamins. But the bureaucrats who issue those licenses are either so overwhelmed or so inept -- or both -- that they can't get them out fast enough

Canada's National Post tells of one little company that makes just two supplements. One's a homeopathic treatment for diabetes pain, the other is a vitamin. I have no idea if either work -- but it may not matter, because neither one's been given that government blessing yet.

If those two products get the Canadian heave-ho, the company will be toast -- or whatever else it is that they burn for breakfast up there.

I hate to break it to them, but they should probably polish up those resumes: There's an estimated backlog of 10,000 vitamins and supplements waiting for approval.

That's one hell of a waiting list.

Over six years, the regulators issued around 18,000 licenses. I'm no math whiz, but that's 3,000 licenses a year -- which means it'll take more than three years to get to everyone still waiting.

This is the precisely the kind of disarray and "regulation" that Big Pharma lives for... because while you can't get many completely ordinary vitamins and supplements in Canada now, you can still get Avandia'.

Hmm, careful, Jema54, homeopathy is generally known to be fradulent. Of course, it could just be a matter of inappropriate characterization in the article that, like Sting, you haven't given us a link to ;-)

American pie...

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=Vq8wbXAR4ZQ

batb and No-One - I am from B.C. and this has been going on for a number of years, this is not something I just found out, but being as we are on the matter of rights, I thought it an excellent time to bring it up. I know how you were treated batb, but people don't want to do anything because then they would have to take responsibility for their children. We are living in an age where most of the parents weren't brought up with a set of moral laws; they were told that anything goes. If you complain you're called intolerant or prudish.

No link for Citizen Joe, but he can leave his apology right under this.

Vitruvius

Yes, of course. Here's the link:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8562801.stm

The numbers quoted are for January 2010.

Thank you, Sting.

Vitamins and a personal encounter..

The regulators are there, being paid, but not doing the job. What's new.

I used to take a Webber [Burnaby / Vancouver], multi-vitamin.

The capsule opened too soon and caused profuse bleeding from the throat.

Now my vitamins come from liver, oranges, bananas, fish, kiwi fruit, rasp & strawberries, and all the natural sources.

Pills pass right through and your money is mostly down the WC,

Seems pills, H1N1 vaccine, and a host of other 'magic' pills can not be trusted.

Visit the produce section EVERY time you hit the supermarket and you will not need any PILLS.

Let's search all the containers that come into the harbour, let's search ever person and his or her luggage that comes into Canada and the USA, especially those that speak with an Arabic accent. Let's patrol the international borders for illegal immigrants, and the skies and the waters for enemy craft. But God help us that a 16 year old kid who drives on a public road should be subjected to a random seach by a bona fide cop!! Now that is real logical thinking!!

Joe citizen - the kid is a citizen, or he should not be here; citizens have rights: the right to privacy is one of those rights. The latter are not citizens and should not be here unless they have proper documentation to visit; like a passport from their home country, for example. If they behave, while in Canada, they should not be harrassed either, IMO.