Lovely. Watching this brings back a lot of memories from when I was actually a violinist.

Interesting Poll released Friday by Gallop - wonder what the numbers would be in Canada...

http://www.gallup.com/poll/118399/More-Americans-Pro-Life-Than-Pro-Choice-First-Time.aspx

Alan Caruba ties current U.S. government laxity regarding illegal immigrants to, well, murders:

"The war on our southern border"

One of the few Obama administration growth stocks.

[I couldn't resist posting this one.]

Just saw the new star trek movie, I think the new kids got it right. I give it a ten out of ten.

Thanks Daniel M. Ryan. P#%$ off a Liberal, buy a gun.

Have any of you yet seen the recent survey out from National Geographic? You can view the full PDF here.

I've skimmed through it and do wonder about its accuracy. For example, if you go to page 290 you'll see this question:

"What is the Primary Cause of Recently Measured Increases in Earth's Temperature?"

In all cases but Argentina and India, the majority of people answered "Increased levels of carbon dioxide gas in the atmosphere". It's also indicated that this is the "correct answer".

I wonder what Dr. Timothy Ball or Christopher Monckton would have to say about that?!>

It looks like the Toronto Star and selected editors and columnists throughout Canada's MSM will soon be on a new phone plan:
http://www.ihatethemedia.com/hugo-chavez-names-new-venezuela-cell-phone-after-his-penis

Robert W. I suspect that Ball and Monckton would debunk National Geographic's fallacy with the real facts rather than unsubstantiated hype.

What's the Venezuelan cell phone called? El Petito?

I will be in the states soon, I'll take care of all this stuff. Just wait and see.

Time for something completely non-political

I just learned of a new search engine called Wolfram Alpha. I'm testing it out, mostly with math & science questions and it seems pretty cool.

Hey, Heart's
"Magic Man"

Glad to, Ken. It's one of the few recent risers that had some common sense behind its ascent.

Robert W,

I did a brief play with Wolfram Alpha. Decided to try out a search on CO2 ... just to see how much nutbar is already there. Didn't see any - but check out the boiling and melting points.

I don't think we'll every be able to assume correct answers.

Did anyone else listen to Roy Green's show Sunday? He had on Buzz Hargrove, whose diatribe reminded me of what an economist said a year or so ago: "The very best thing the auto manufacturing unions could do for their members would be to dissolve themselves." Fat chance of that!

During the discussion it was alluded to that GM needs its members to take a $30/hour pay cut. Clearly these guys won't be making minimum wage afterwards. So it would be fascinating to get accurate figures on how much they make now.

One wonders if many more industries in North America will eventually have to scale back their wages to be more realistic? When that's happening, imagine asking public sector union members to do the same!!

Off topic -- sorry, but needs saying:

Any serious upswing in LPC income "thanks to Conservative truth ads" should be seen as a clear indication that the Grits at last feel safe enough to start digging their stolen loot out of the rose garden and apply the money to promoting and advertising their particular brand of larcenous mis-conduct.

I ask that Elections Canada and Police agencies be on the alert for this potential development.

tj

t.e. & o.e.

"It’s terrible. Biblically terrible.

Possibly the worst new car money can buy. It’s the first car I’ve ever considered crashing into a tree, on purpose, so I didn’t have to drive it any more."

urlm.in/clhm

>>> Find “carpetbagger”.

“Ignatieff attack ads and Liberals’ error

At long last Harper has started his campaign for the next election with a series of ads portraying Ignatieff as an absentee Canadian, a carpetbagger returning to the north expecting the plum of the prime ministership to fall into his lap, a man with multiple nationalities, and an out of touch elitist writer and speaker with a deft touch for capturing in words a misguided, Americanized philosophy.

Oh, and even an elitist coffee drinker!

And the predictable reaction of Liberals?

Outrage, concern, fear.

And stupidity.

Why stupid?

Because they have learned nothing over the past five years.”
urlm.in/clhn

A Truth Ad: Dedicated to Liberal Iggy, Dhalla Nana’s Carpetbagger.

Iggy professes he stands by Ruby.
Not so; Iggy has thrown Ruby o-u-t of the Liberal house.

Iggy: non-stuck on Ruby, stuck on stupid:

“Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff’s statement that he takes Ms. Dhalla “at her word” that she did not abuse caregivers who worked in her family home will hurt the Liberal Party’s image with ethnic voters.**”

“^Won’t you come home, Dear Ruby, won’t you come home
I’ve moaned the whole night long
I’ll do the cookin’, honey, I’ll pay the rent
I know I done you wrong

You remember that rainy evenin’
I threw you out….with nothin’ but a fine tooth comb
Ya, I know I’m to blame, now… ain’t it a shame
Dear Ruby, won’t you please come home”
…-

” Is it possible some in Dhalla’s own community want her out? Why?

There might be other federal Liberals aspiring to get that riding by removing Liberal MP Ruby Dhalla. Paul Martin appointed her a few years ago and the internal fight is still alive and well.”
urlm.in/clhp (HillTimes subscription)
…-
**urlm.in/clhq
(^H/T Louis Armstrong)

The Evil-Enviro/MSM Conspiracy: It's Suzy, the Traitor's Fault.
Enviros have quuuaaccked up.
ToxicBarf Alert. Includes ad for: "Slow Death By Rubber Duck".
...-

"Where Was the Media?

Tzeporah Berman, Rafe Mair: Who's message got airplay?

I tried to raise key election issues. Some big enviro groups, and most reporters, looked away."

"Movement divided, media muted

"If there is an environmental movement it was sent asunder by the defection of Tzeporah Berman and David Suzuki,"
http://thetyee.ca/Views/2009/05/18/WhereWasMedia/

Steyn on The Nanny State.
...-

"Escalating control [Mark Steyn]

From The Globe & Mail:

MONTREAL — Anyone who has ridden an escalator and bothered to pay attention has seen – and likely ignored – little signs suggesting riders hold the grimy handrail.

In Montreal's subway system, the friendly advice seems to have taken on the force of law, backed by a $100 fine.

Bela Kosoian, a 38-year-old mother of two, says when she didn't hold the handrail Wednesday she was cuffed, dragged into a small holding cell and fined.

“It was horrible, disgusting behaviour [by police],” said Ms. Kosoian, a 38-year-old student of international law. “I did nothing wrong. They should go find the guys who stole my tires off the balcony.”

Pausing only to wonder idly whether the expressions "38-year-old student of international law" and "the guys who stole my tires off the balcony" have ever been used in the same paragraph in the entire history of the English language, we read on to find experts dismissing the plea in mitigation by Ms Kosoian (an immigrant from the former Soviet republic of Georgia) that she "feared catching a new bug":

A leading germ expert says you are more likely to fall down an escalator than catch illness from a handrail.

All the more reason to criminalize hands-free riding then. Meanwhile in Britain:

Learning how to fasten a tie had always been a schoolboy's rite of passage.

But then the health and safety police got involved.

Concerns over accidental strangling, playground games in which pupils yank each others' ties and fears that ties might catch fire in science lessons have seen the classroom institution fall victim to its clip-on cousin.

And what if your tie gets caught in the handrail of an escalator?"
urlm.in/clhy

Night of the living fed"

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,520467,00.html

Hey the President did it too! He heard part of his speech from a friend as well...

This makes sense because liberals share the same brain, so I can see how the sentence could have been verbatim except for a couple words.

I know you hunt Whitetails Kate, check it out. Not that you need advice from some of your posted pictures. http://www.whitetailsforwomen.com/

Well it is official the Obama Tax Team is not talking to the Obama Spend Team, its a ponzi scheme I tell you.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124260337667928567.html

(Via SWJ; NYT warning) Thom Shanker and David E. Sanger, Pakistan Is Rapidly Adding Nuclear Arms, U.S. Says

Members of Congress have been told in confidential briefings that Pakistan is rapidly adding to its nuclear arsenal even while racked by insurgency, raising questions on Capitol Hill about whether billions of dollars in proposed military aid might be diverted to Pakistan’s nuclear program...

Inside the Obama administration, some officials say, Pakistan’s drive to spend heavily on new nuclear arms has been a source of growing concern, because the country is producing more nuclear material at a time when Washington is increasingly focused on trying to assure the security of an arsenal of 80 to 100 weapons so that they will never fall into the hands of Islamic insurgents...

Spengler, Dolphinplasty as a principle of governance

You can define a mythical creature with precision, observed St Thomas Aquinas, but that doesn't make a phoenix exist. To be there, things actually have to have the property of existence. St Thomas would be a party-pooper in today's politics, where "yes, we can" means that we can do whatever we want, even if it violates custom, the constitution or the laws of nature.

The television cartoon South Park offers a useful allegory for the administration's flight from realism. In one episode the children's teacher, Mr Garrison, gets a sex change, little Kyle gets negroplasty (to turn him into a tall black basketball star), while Kyle's father undergoes dolphinplasty, that is, surgery to make him look like a dolphin.

Looking like a dolphin, of course, doesn't make you one. Sadly, the Barack Obama administration hasn't figured this out...

abc News presents: Breaking News.
...-

"Who Is Responsible for Averting an Asteroid Strike?

Column: It's Time to Set Aside Political Quibbles and Form an International Plan"

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Space/story?id=7599632&page=1

[quote]Hey the President did it too! He heard part of his speech from a friend as well...[/quote]

Illiquid assets,
The Obama Split Personallity is driving me nuts!

The President’s speechwriter gets help from the spirit of Mother Theresa.....

The Presidents "Real" Policy is dictated by George Soros

One can only hope that arrangements can be made for George and Mother Teresa to meet for a brief lunch, at some point between Heaven and Hell.

BTW: How many offsore numbered accounts does GE have? How many are stuffed with hidden profits?

Goreacle chews tobaccy; and, ssspits and sssputters.
Yes, Gore is a manbearpig.
It's in Time.
...-

"Even Al Gore Can't Bring Attention to the Environment and Recession

Al Gore was able to get most people to forget the money he took from the tobacco industry and Buddhist monks by winning both the Nobel Prize and an Oscar for his work on educating the world about the dangers of global warming and other problems that affect the environment.

Gore's problem is that in this economic climate he cannot get himself arrested even for chaining himself to the entrance of a coal-fired electrical plant. The interest in supporting policies that will improve the environment is trumped by the necessity of corporate survival. (See pictures of Al Gore's American life.)"
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1899171,00.html

maz2, a lot of this started with the "zero tolerance" for smoking. Ironically, it was a tolerance test to see just how far governments could go with the tacit "approval" of the public in the name of "Saving The Children".

Smoking is bad, don't smoke. But if given the choice of having a rabid, dedicated lunatic screaming at you vs. some average Joe puffing along on his smoke minding his own business, who would you prefer?

The western world has decided. It's holier-than-thou time, a new, officially-approved puritanical, feel-good hate-on. Let's go after the smokers, yeah! I'll not speculate on the hypocritical pot smokers, who all seem to be lefties for some reason.

Reports: Sri Lanka Kills Tamil Tiger Leader

Sri Lanka declared Monday it had crushed the final resistance of the Tamil Tigers, killing the rebel group's leader along with his son and other commanders, according to reports.

The death of Velupillai Prabhakaran came as the government claimed to have seized control of the island state for the first time in 26 years, ending Asia's longest-running war.

"Smoking is bad, don't smoke." That's Nanny State's message; but, NannynaziState loves its tobaccy taxes.

Well, then. Let's not get smoked up about O's protectionism. It's not a "burning issue"*.

'Cause MSM told us that O loves* Canada/ians.
...-

"Burlington heating plant shut down"

"Tulsa, Okla.-based AAON Inc. announced in a letter to staff late last week that AAON Canada will cease operations July 23."
http://www.thestar.com/business/article/635902
...-

*Obama declares love for Canada, banishes Bush era | Reuters
19 Feb 2009 ... OTTAWA (Reuters) - Declaring I love this country and waving to ecstatic Canadian crowds, US President Barack Obama helped reignite on ...
uk.reuters.com/article/burningIssues/idUKTRE51I7GY20090219 - 56k

Re: Grits latest election bluff, EI (CTV.ca comments):

Jim in Edmonton
"I am an unemployed oil worker in Alberta and I do not want these changes to go through ... why? Because all the spending on top of spending will increase our national debt to the point where our children and grand children can't pay for it. We may be even at that point now. 2. studies have shown that most people who's EI run's out find work pretty quickly .. what does that tell you. On almost every single challange the gov't has, the NDP answer is to spend. As far as the liberals go, Iggy won't be around long enough to pay his fair share. Once he's defeated in the PM run, he'll move off to Harvard, or Oxford, or Yale etc. and of course he'll write a book about the whole experience. Stop spending, the economy is improving and we'll survive. Ps. my family and I are finding it pretty tough right now, we've had to refinance our home to keep up but we know this is just short term. We don't want to pass on a debt worse than it is now to our children. We are making due with less, not asking the gov't to spend our children's future."

Thsi is counterpoint to the alive and breathing coalition ready to seize power and spend, spend, spend like their fiscal drunken idiot cousins elsewhere.

Next Tamil Tiger venue in Canada? Montreal, Ottawa, TO?

Survey says: Ottawa.

Why Ottawa? Experts say, That's the home of Liberal Iggy's Warriors.

Iggy says; I am not now; nor have IMoi ever been a Tamil Tiger veteran.
...-

"Tamils stage protests across Europe
Aljazeera.net - ‎22 minutes ago‎
Tamil expatriates have held demonstrations across Europe after Sri Lanka's government declared victory over the Tamil Tigers and said Velupillai Prabhakaran, its leader and founder, had been killed"

This one's a little old, but it's a grabber:

"Supreme Court Accepts Conrad Black Conviction Appeal"

Few cases of this sort ever make it to that level.

Lest we forget . . .

It was just drawn to my attention that the federal Liberals want to STRENGTHEN the power of the HRCs: http://thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/Federal-Politics/2009/05/02/Grits-policy-carbon-tax

Can you believe that? With everything that has gone on with Levant & Steyn, they want to give the thugs on the HRCs MORE POWER!!!

That alone is a solid reason to fight Ignatieff and his ilk every step of the way!

Robert W.

Brother have you got that right. I may not like all of Harpers back sliding but the alternative is an Obama with jack boots on your neck.

Belmont says, "Some will probably regard this as a tragedy because now Colombo has no one to negotiate with."

The Canadian Iggy-McGuinty-Liberals-TalibanJackLaytoNDP Coalition is available.
...-

"Gotterdammerung

“Prabhakaran shot dead,” reports the Times Online.

The leader of Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels, Velupillai Prabhakaran, has been killed along with his son and other Tiger commanders. Prabhakaran was ambushed and shot dead while trying to flee government troops as special forces closed in on the last rebel fortifications. … The conflict area had been reduced to a patch of land just 100 metres by 100 metres, he added. Tens of thousands of civilians who had been caught in the crossfire were finally allowed to flee to freedom over the weekend.

A senior defence official said Prabhakaran had been killed while trying to flee the area in an ambulance with two close aides. “He was killed with two others inside the vehicle,” the official said. The government said that they had found the body of Prabhakaran’s 24 year old son Charles Anthony, the heir apparent of the Tigers’ leadership. The head of the rebels’ political wing, Balasingham Nadesan, the head of the Tigers’ defunct peace secretariat, Seevaratnam Puleedevan, and their eastern leader, S. Ramesh were also said to be among the dead.

Independent verification of the situation is all but impossible as journalists are not being allowed near the conflict zone.

Some will probably regard this as a tragedy because now Colombo has no one to negotiate with. An recent article from the Times Online quoted “fears in Western capital(s) … ” that “if the Tamil leadership goes ahead with their threats of suicide will there be anyone left to negotiate with? ”"
http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2009/05/18/gotterdammerung/

More from Belmont Club above:

Commenter: "MarkL:

It is never about people with the parasitical international fantasists: it is about them. If there is ’someone to negotiate with’, then up pops a sleazy slew of greasy Armani suited UN and other internationalist parasites to prolong the agony that they may feast longer on the blood and suffering.

That industrial quantities of ‘little brown people’ may suffer and die during the resultant futile prolongation of the conflict matters not one whit to the jet-setting, white SUV driving, five star hotel dwelling international UN/NGO parasite class. After all, they are getting both a fine lifestyle and the warm inner glow of ‘helping the peace process’.

That neither Europe nor Asia harbours one refugee camp from the vast population displacements and refugee flows of 1945, and that Arab nations harbour swarms of fourth generation “palestinian refugees” from a minescule arab refugee flow from 1948 illustrates the point.

61 years on and the international parasite class (and others, of course) are still living on a temporary situation from 1948 which should have been resolved by 1949!

And let us not get on to the UN and NGO-operated paedophile, sex-slave and drug importation rings in the Congo and other hellholes where such loathesome do-gooders swarm like maggots on a dead dog.

Although such ‘Kumbaya Rednecks’ get the vapours when ones says this, total war has its place. It settles things rather decisively - the national socialists have been very well behaved little socialists since 1945 - a dead socialist being very well behaved indeed….

And that is a rather pleasing finality.

The LTTE got exactly what they deserved, and Columbo is to be congratulated on their victory.

Let the international parasites negotiate with the corpses of the LTTE leadership.

MarkL
canberra"
http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2009/05/18/gotterdammerung/

sorry Vito...von karajan and nazi party membership(oof!)....for myself my gentle self that fact has ruined herbert's effusions for fourty years...i have refused on principle to buy anything he had even remotely been involved in producing or directing...xly anything remotely deutsche gramaphone still makes me sick up...

but carry on Vito..carry on !

Oh, that's part of why I like him, because it makes you look foolish.

well...

i'm surprised at you calling me a 'fool'...and so why then do i look 'foolish' for deeming a member of the Nazi party someone worthy of your respect and yet I feel worthy of my Boycott.

Yes.

Somewhere,somehow,at some time soon,someone will make a really,really, bad joke about this;---http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090518/clinton_haiti_090518/20090518?hub=TopStories---

well well well...

that non answer speaks volumes...good luck to you Vito...carry on ...but i must say it appears to me and many of my "ilk" you are only pretending to do a whole lot o' things 'moderne et conservarive" to which WE are simpctico...but you do some of it in a supremely suspect manner...(ie, as in touting known Nazis)

so i guess i must in the pursuit of ideological purity i must relegate you and your 'act' to CBC oblovia ...

but have a nice day(as they say)...

same old same old...we USED to have lllieberals turning con...now we have music queers pretending to be queers turning lllieberal...

i'm getting a migraine

Serves you right.

begley, one of my favourite conductors is/was Furtwangler

If you deny yourself his recordings, it is a foolish thing

Actually, one of the most amazing things to hear is the breakneck speed at which Furtwangler takes things at the end of Beethoven's Ninth. Crazy beautiful, and inspiring and amazing

Well, my old friend begley has made a telling point. Clearly Vito only featured this von Karajan creep because he held that vital Nazi party card. I mean, it's not as if the little jerk could actually conduct or anything. Why, I've seen better conductors on the roof of my barn. And we all know that no one ever held a Nazi party membership out of mere self-interest, or desire to keep himself or his family as safe as possible, or just to be allowed to go on working at work as beautiful and important as this, and certainly never out of misguided patriotism. Hell, no. He had to be certified 99.99% pure evil, and be proud of it, or they'd never have taken him.

"Vito"? Wasn't that Mussolini's name?

I would not necessarily agree that "no one ever held a Nazi party membership out of mere self-interest, or desire to keep himself or his family as safe as possible", merely because many people did join communist parties in those other dictatorships for pretty much the reasons presented here.

Incidentally, my (limited) experience with German conductors is that they go much too fast (thinking of Klemperer particularly). I did not get that impression of von Karajan however.

Well, this thread is dead. But nv53 - I love the accelerandi of Furtwanger!!

And, I must say, one of the most transitive experiences for me was in the 1970s - meeting Germans who were Nazis in WWII - but out of patriotism - not ideology

It set my head spinning for many years. These guys were human, not robots.