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Can I haz folding chair?

Da, and you can haz dancing bridge too.

Some of the information in this report in the NYT might provide a bit of hope for the future:

In the last three general elections, young voters have given Democrats a majority of their votes, according to exit polls. Today, specifically, the youngest potential voters are more likely than their older peers to think it is important to protect individual liberties from government, the Harvard data suggest, and less likely to think it is important to tackle things like climate change, health care or immigration.

Earlier in the report,

Polls show that Americans under 30 are still inclined to support Mr. Obama by a wide margin. But the president may face a particular challenge among voters ages 18 to 24. In that group, his lead over Mitt Romney — 12 points — is about half of what it is among 25- to 29-year-olds, according to an online survey this spring by the Harvard Institute of Politics. And among whites in the younger group, Mr. Obama’s lead vanishes altogether.

(emph. mine)

Personally I think its a a lost cause.
The UN stands for Islam these days . Has departed completely with Western values, if not all Humanity.
It now stands 4 square with the Dictators, control freaks with hostility towards capitalism with Individuality for collectivism with human conformity. Particularly Anti-Religious except for an extreme form of Islam. Its picking people for important posts from maniacs proves this beyond doubt. The UN is the Wests enemy, not friend or even neutral.
Its has become the foe of decency for the Killers among us.

Analysis: Can Canada fix the UN, and should it even try?

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/07/02/analysis-can-canada-fix-the-un-and-should-it-even-try/

It's the old familiar refrain:

"Hatemongers have targeted Brooklyn’s Orthodox community with a vicious assault, a string of synagogue thefts and anti-Semitic vandalism targeting synagogues and Jewish neighborhoods. In the most disturbing incident, a mob of six black teenagers shouting, 'Dirty Jew!' and 'Dirty kike!' repeatedly bashed Marc Heinberg, 61, as he walked home from temple in Sheepshead Bay last Friday at 9:15 p.m...."

I see the Islamists have conquered and are in the process of trashing Timbuctoo. The MSM is reporting buildings and tombs being distroyed but I see no mention of the vast libraries - actually just dusty mounds of ancient scrolls - stored in the city. Google or Bling 'timbuctoo scrolls', 700,000 ancient manuscripts just laying in piles in mud houses, waiting to be restored and studied. Is this potential bonfire of ancient writings not getting any coverage because it might stir up 'Islamophobia', or is it just the usual normal journalistic stupidity and incompentence?

To the MSM ... Timbuktu is somewhere that exists in some old movie or book ...nothing to see here.

Ancient writings in Timbuktu yop pshaw! You should see the collection of National Geographic my father in law left me!

Of course for the average media reporter Last Sunday's edition of the NYT is ancient writings.

Dave Carter at Ricochet:

How is it in America that one lawyer on the Supreme Court can serenely disarm states of their sovereignty one day, return two days later to rob the individual of his, and fashion himself as the guardian of the Court's credibility? Since when did the Court's credibility become synonymous with the number of nodding heads on the New York Times editorial board, or the number of obsequious kisses tendered by the MSNBC brain trust? Or is this yet another case of an ostensible conservative "growing" in office, asserting his independence from orthodoxy and thereby establishing the independence of the judiciary before a President who might as well be smiling and asking Chief Justice Roberts, "Who's your daddy now?"

Ann Barnhardt, with typical diplomatic understatement, suggests that Chief Justice John Roberts and the other denizens of DC might have possibly let their morals slip, even if ever so slightly:

"Roberts is a moral degenerate lifetime Washington D.C. politico, who is well known in the beltway to be borderline obsessed with his image. In other words, Chief Justice John Roberts emotionally operates on the same level as the average twelve year old girl, and just sold out not just the Republic, the Constitution and the entire American populace, but really the entire planet, because now that the United States is no more, the forces of evil will run absolutely rampant over the rest of the planet. And Roberts did it so that a bunch of coke-snorting sodomites and psychopaths in Georgetown will pretend to like him – for about five minutes."

She goes on to gently suggest to her respected readers that they might want to consider at least entertaining the possibility that Obama is not an entirely honest fellow, and that American conservatives might be, at the present time, to a certain extent at least, behind the proverbial 8-ball:

"Listen Jackasses, everything Obama has said and done for his entire adult life, his entire political career, his entire campaign, and in his entire regime is a lie. For the love of God, EVEN HIS NAME IS A LIE. He passed an obviously forged birth certificate last April. Every single thing he has said, promised and done has been total, complete, objectively proven lie after lie. And you think you’re going to checkmate him with THIS? You think that a point of semantics between 'penalty' and 'tax' is going to bring him down in this nation of Snooki-watching imbeciles? Are you on drugs, or just merely stupid?"

I hope Barnhardt eventually comes out of her shell, and starts being a bit more clear and direct about what she actually thinks.

... I've started to really like Ann Barnhardt. ... she's single too I've noticed.

It was bound to come to this: Sustainable Happiness.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/understanding-our-growing-interest-in-happiness/article4384631/

Re: Engineer

Was that shot in Quebec??

great video
Love the x and o's around 1:50

Globe and Mail, Saturday, June 30. The Future of Blasphemy by Austin Dacey, reviewed by John Gray.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/book-reviews/the-future-of-blasphemy-by-austin-dacey/article4379660/

"In a twist that illustrates how religion continues to be at the heart of public debate, what was once punished as blasphemy is now being condemned as a violation of human rights. As Dacey writes succinctly, 'Blasphemy has been reframed within the secular idiom of respect for persons.' Understood in the past as disrespect for the Deity, blasphemy has been turned into a lack of respect for human beings. The European Court of Human Rights has asserted a universal 'right to respect for religious feelings,' while the United Nations has condemned anything that could be categorized as 'advocacy of religious hatred.' We have reached a state of affairs in which acts that used to be defined as sacrilege against God are being criminalized as disrespect for humanity."

"... It is not only free expression that is in danger. Prohibiting offence to religious feelings is an assault on freedom of religion, since it prevents believers attacking idolatry as much as it limits the freedom of unbelievers."

"As Dacey writes, 'An openness to sacrilege is a safeguard against investing the wrong things with sacredness.' ..."

Toronto Star, Saturday, June 30. The paper interviews Order of Canada recipients.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1219695--the-gta-s-new-order-of-canada-appointees-speak

"The Star posed the following questions to this year’s O.C. recipients from the Greater Toronto Area:

...

2. What is your biggest hope for the country? Your biggest fear?

3. If you had one piece of advice for young Canadians, what would it be?"

The responses of former Supreme Court of Canada judge Ian Binnie:

"2. I think what, to me, has always characterized Canada is a very fundamental sense of decency and people caring for people. And traditionally we’ve all been prepared to pay higher taxes so that people don’t get seriously left behind in poverty or lack of education, so my greatest hope is that this national spirit that has always seemed to bind us together continues. My greatest fear is that it will disintegrate into a free-for-all where everybody only looks out for themselves.

3. Realize that you are the captain of your own ship and that what you do in life is your responsibility, and that when you get beyond school, you no longer have somebody watching over your shoulder, giving you guidance, and if you wind up in 40 years not having achieved what you hoped, you’re going to have to look within yourself to see if you lost track of the dreams you started out with."

Both of these comments are strong on boilerplate, but the interesting thing is that they contradict one another.

It's a lot more difficult to take responsibility for one's own life and achieve one's goals within the requisite 40 years when you also have to pay higher taxes for all the addicts shooting up in supervised injection sites, and 10,000 other "social programs".

I first saw this story in the Toronto Star on Saturday, June 30, but could only find a CBC link:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/06/28/pol-harper-buttons-union.html

"Public servants who got in trouble for wearing 'Stephen Harper Hates Me' buttons to work are fighting back.

Several employees at the Canada Revenue Agency who were told to remove the buttons by their managers have filed grievances through their union to fight the order."

Sorry, workers, you lose. The situation is very similar to the Neil Fraser case that was decided in favour of the government in 1985. Then, another former Revenue Canada employee "publicly criticized the federal government's policies concerning metrification and the constitutional entrenchment of a charter of rights". Freedom of speech was subordinate to federal government workplace discipline. This is unsettling to full-fledged free speech advocates, but it is certainly not patently unreasonable.

Toronto Star, Saturday, June 30. Quebec Inuit compensated for dog slaughter of 1950s-1960s:

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1219662--inuit-communities-finally-get-compensation-for-dog-slaughter

"While the Inuit insist the slaughter was part of a campaign to force them off the land and into federal programs and villages, federal and provincial authorities have said the cull was for public safety purposes and to control disease."

Oh sure. We're from the government and we're here to help you, #83,579.

Similar: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creole_Pig

Globe and Mail, Monday, July 2. Gwyn Morgan hits the nail on the head again.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/at-the-heart-of-economic-crises-givers-versus-takers/article4384508/

"In both Europe and the United States, the financial crises come down to a struggle between 'takers' and 'givers.'"

"An April column of mine on this issue drew a lot of feedback. One reader forwarded an unattributed piece that put entitlements into perspective: 'The folks who are getting the free stuff are mad at the folks who are paying for the free stuff because they can no longer pay for both the free stuff and their own stuff.'"

"NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair demonstrates his own version of being 'mad at the folks who are paying for the free stuff' by vilifying Alberta’s resources which pay the lion’s share of Quebec’s $7-billion annual equalization payments."

"Looters" and "producers" (Ayn Rand's formulation) might be a better way of putting it than "takers" and "givers". Productive people take, but they put the same amount back. That's how the free market operates: the voluntary trade of value for value, for mutual benefit.

Toronto Star, Wednesday, June 27. What happened to the 15-hour week? by Robert Skidelsky.

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1217674--what-happened-to-the-15-hour-week

"As people in the developed world wonder how their countries will return to full employment after the Great Recession, it might benefit us to take a look at a visionary essay that John Maynard Keynes wrote in 1930, called "Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren."

"Machines were rapidly replacing human labour, holding out the prospect of vastly increased production at a fraction of the existing human effort. In fact, Keynes thought that by about now (the early twenty-first century) most people would have to work only 15 hours a week to produce all that they needed for subsistence and comfort."

I can answer the question posed in the article title.

1. Taxes

2. Regulation

3. Generally speaking, regarding John Maynard Keynes as a "visionary" instead of a charlatan.

The 15-hour (or even less) week is indeed within reach, but it will take a return to a free market capitalist economy to accomplish it.

Bankers with their fingers in the "rate rigging".

...-

"Barclays chief Diamond quits over rate rigging"

"TD Bank woos car buyers with take-back program"

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Music pick with a volume warning (coming from the guy cues up Anthrax thrash metal, mildly amusing.

Is Alanis Morissette cool to like again?

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

live, and full on 15 years ago.

D

" It couldn't happen to a nicer loudmouth."

Or,'How I spent my summer vacation',by Pat Martin.

http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/straighttalk/archives/2012/07/20120703-081254.html

For your dinosaur file.

"Washington Post Fact Checker: I Don’t Fact Check Our Own Writers"

http://washingtonexaminer.com/washington-post-fact-checker-i-dont-fact-check-our-own-writers/article/2501189

".....Fact Checker.....column only checks “the rhetoric used by politicians and interest groups” – not other reporters or columnists."

The fabricated anti-gay-bullying/harassment story is becoming an art form:

http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-new-britain-ccsu-bias-made-it-up-0703-20120702,0,4275448.story

I'm pretty sure Bush is responsible for the DC power outage. I'm equally sure that those who whine about what they are getting will continue to vote for more of the same.

LITIGIOUS LEFT STILL ATTACKING CANADIAN CONSERVATIVE BLOGGERS WITH VEXATIOUS LAWFARE

Som Sabadell, Spain, flashmob:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GBaHPND2QJg

Joyful, Joyful, we adore thee ...

Roseberry, the fabricated anti-gay bullying/harassment stories are right up there with the "false memories" of vulnerable, impressionable children.

Lives were ruined.

These lefties are pond scum, dragging innocent people down to the bottom where they dwell. Misery loves company -- an adage they take a few steps further -- and deeper.

Funniest headline of the day...
Nothing wrong with RIM: CEO!

Yeah, no kidding! No wonder tech companies are like a candle in the freakin' wind. Too busy believing their own press to see the freight train coming...

I read at DRUDGE today: Argentine Leader: Equality is as important as liberty.

Co-incidentally, a friend sent me this most excellent link (which I've set to egalitarianism.)

Ayn Rand Lexicon

Breaking news: Bev Oda is stepping down.

I don't think she'll be missed much.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/story/2012/07/03/andy-griffith-obit.html

Sheriff Taylor has dies at age 86.

The Tolerant Left.

Bob Beckel: 'If I Was Juan Williams I'd Wake Up Next To' Michelle Malkin 'With a Shotgun'

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2012/07/03/bob-beckel-id-wake-next-michelle-malkin-shotgun

Mao Stlong* Lepolt.

(*Ex-Liberal leader Bob Rae's Uncle Mo.)

...-

"In Peru, Chinese mining firm moves a town to get to the copper underneath
Globe and Mail"

...-

"China’s latest import to Africa? A ghost town in Angola"

"There’s been a lot written about ghost towns in China.

Now, state-owned China International Trust and Investment Corporation (CITIC) has built a town in Angola. And it’s fairly empty.

Just outside Angola’s capital city of Luanda is Nova Cidade de Kilamba a residential development of 750 eight-story apartment buildings, a dozen schools, and more than 100 retail units, reports the BBC’s Louise Redvers."

http://business.financialpost.com/2012/07/03/chinas-latest-import-to-africa-a-ghost-town-in-angola/

PET Cemetery Report.

Our Twits & Tweets

...-

"From @fullcomment: Den Tandt: Polls show Canada actually more progressive after six years of Tory rule"(NP)

...-

"Court rejects failed Liberal leadership candidates' pleas for debts extensions

Hedy Fry, Martha Hall Findlay and Joe Volpe still owe tens of thousands as a result of their campaigns to lead the Liberal party in 2006"

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/07/03/ex-liberal-leadership-candidates-could-face-fines-jail-time-after-court-rejects-pleas-for-extension-on-debts/