In retrospect, I should have counted. Last night I watched 2 hours of CTV on the local affiliate (from 8 pm – 10 pm). Fully half of the advertising consisted of happy, shiny people spots bought and paid for by various departments of the Saskatchewan Government – your tax dollars.
These included health worker “recruitment” ads. That’s right – a department that claims to be short of funds and even shorter of workers, thinks their recruiting budget is best spent within the province.
Sure, they do.
As I said, I should have counted. But considering the number of commercial breaks over two hours of prime time, and that there were two – three in each break, there had to be at least twenty of these ads.
And that’s not all – here’s what’s going on behind the scenes;
My husband is a physician in Saskatoon. He received a packet from the
government today. The cover letter was signed by Lorne Calvert and details
what he calls “my government” has used our taxpayer dollars to fund. The
letter was accompanied by a poster about “Building Futures” and approximately 20 copies of a brochure printed on nice, heavy stock. The brochure is at
[this link].
And I would be happy to fax the letter.
Yet another example of the NDP using tax dollars to buy votes and campaign.
And this time they are surreptitiously asking physicians to aid in their campaign.
The letter is on the Premier’s letterhead;
The Government of Saskatchewan has made significant enhancements to programs and services that support young families. We want to ensure Saskatchewan is the best place for young people to live, work and build strong futures.
We all want our children to get the best start in life, and one factor in the success of young families is access to quality early learning and child care. This is why my Government has made improvements such as increased licensed child care spaces by 2000 in the past five years, increasing child care subsidies for parents, and improving wages and training opportunities for child care providers. We have expanded the number of prekindergartens, and we will soon be opening parent resource centres across the province.
The rest of the letter goes on in this vein, with a one paragraph reference to “ensuring Saskatchewan families have access to high quality health care in a timely manner” being a “priority” for the Government, before going on to cover their efforts in family poverty, housing, the Graduate Tax Exemption, the Building Communities Program, sport, culture, recreation, lotteries, etc. The last sentence reads;
Thank you for working with us to build better futures.
Lorne Calvert
Premier
And speaking of manifestos – on his show yesterday, John Gormley publicly commended the NDP for finally retiring the infamous Regina Manifesto. Not so fast. It was bouncing around the party website all day.
One would think that a media interested in exploring the historical allegations of Ku Klux Klan support for a Conservative party of 80 years ago would be at least as interested in the current governing party’s interest in clinging to a document that proclaims – “We aim to replace the present capitalist system, with its inherent injustice and inhumanity, by a social order from which the domination and exploitation of one class by another will be eliminated, in which economic planning will supersede unregulated private enterprise and competition, and in which genuine democratic self-government, based upon economic equality will be possible.”
One would think.
So, were does the public sector get it’s funds to “support” the private sector?
Here’s a hint. The public sector doesn’t generate it’s own funds. It leaches it off the private sector.
Public sector grants aren’t free money given to corporations. The government wants the corporations to succeed so that they can get their money back and more through taxes. It’s not an altruistic blessing of captial.
The line in Calvert’s letter that caught my eye was this one: “This is why my Government has made improvements such as increased licensed child care spaces ….”
” … MY government …” ??
Sorry, Comrade, but it’s Her Majesty’s Government, and you are merely HER first minister. Such lese-majeste is inappropriate at any time, and certainly from a devout socialist.
However, this little Freudian slip isn’t really all Mr Calvert’s fault. Our whole political culture seems to be subsumed by the cult of the celebrity, wherein all authority, all wisdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever Amen, is vested in one individual – the PM federally and the Premiers provincially. No-one and nothing else matters.
And in its own way, that pathology is just about as dangerous as any idiotic policy that any party or government could hatch.
TSLM:
“due to falling revenues, all salaries are immediately reduced by 30%”
How many CEOs receive notices like this? In smaller companies, all the time.
Actually it’s the CEO’s who give such notices, and in smaller companies they are expected to take a much bigger hit, as a percentage of their salaries, than the employees. It’s usually a sliding scale – maybe 30% reduction for managers, 20% reduction for most employees, and 10% reduction for the lowest paid employees. If managers do not lead by example, then the employees find work elsewhere when things improve.
I’ve gone through it three times now, which doesn’t leave me particularly tolerant of people who say that it’s government which is taking the risk.
And the shareholders do more than lose their dividends – the share price typically tanks as well, sometimes to zero. Most shareholders had to work for that money, and they’re not all millionaires.
Economics doesn’t work on some theory that you read in a text book.
I’m talking from nearly 30 years experience as an employee, manager, and investor in the private-industry technology sector. My guess is that you are not.
Keep spinning your wheels SLM. Despite it not working, despite all the futile effort to implement a failed dream, keep on keeping on.
Force people to act counter to humane nature, kill them if they resist.
enough
Please don’t pick on my useful idiot, er, comrade.
He’s innocently doing my work in his absence. Just remember, “I meant well” so what’s 150 million dead? Merely a statistic.
Just watch him scramble.
The Self-Loathing Multiculturalist
I know a whole lot of engineers. You ain’t one.
My guess is you work for the city. In a union. Doing nothing. .
“The Self-Loathing Multiculturalist
I know a whole lot of engineers. You ain’t one.
My guess is you work for the city. In a union. Doing nothing.”
Hahaha!!!!
Sadly, No. I have never had the priviledge of joining a Union, nor am I employed in the private sector. I sit in a nice, comfortable, air conditioned office in North Toronto, overlooking the city. Quite nice, actually.
I am a licensed P.Eng in Ontario. I work in the private healthcare sector, working in Software Development and Implementation.
That is the problem with political extremists: you create an image of what your political enemies look like. When some one comes along that doesn’t look like what you imagine, your simple little mind can’t handle it.
Sanitation engineer?
enough
Ah, techies.
Now they are leftards.
Real engineers are linear, logical thinkers who tend to be libertarians in policy if not in party support.
You’d think a group working in computer programming would be the same but every techie I know resembles the two classes of Pedophiles: Star Trek geeks and Star Wars geeks (not to say techies are pedophiles.) 85% or more are left and irrationally emotional. Must be something to do with having no friends in high school or something.
But the logic in the work doesn’t seem to carry over into anything else.
“Ah, techies.
Now they are leftards.
Real engineers are linear, logical thinkers who tend to be libertarians in policy if not in party support.
You’d think a group working in computer programming would be the same but every techie I know resembles the two classes of Pedophiles: Star Trek geeks and Star Wars geeks (not to say techies are pedophiles.) 85% or more are left and irrationally emotional. Must be something to do with having no friends in high school or something.
But the logic in the work doesn’t seem to carry over into anything else.”
Really? The person who recruited me into the NDP was a P.Eng, who ran his own private business. How funny is that?
And computer science is based on mathematics, which is very logical and rational. How can that cause irrational emotions?
Perhaps a person’s politics has nothing to do with their education, and more with their life experience? But that would be too much for you. Moonbat!!! Moonbat!!!! All of you!!!! Moonbats!!!
Hey, I’m getting pretty good at this!!!!
Look at me, I’m defending civilization!!! Moonbat!!! Moonbat!!! You all love Jack Layton, and hate civilization!!! Moonbat!!!!
I’m fighting the war on terror!!!
lol.
Exceptions in every bunch. Must be Toronto water.
You seem to cling to this conceit that the right is narrow-minded and rigidly ideological but the left is open and enlightened.
I see no difference between the far left (NDP and beyond) and the far right (so-cons like pat buchanan and beyond.)
It’s funny how you leftards cling to old, tired and discredited ideas and desperately try to deny the failure of your ideas. You lot are the most dogmatic, rigid and intolerant groups on the planet. You split hairs over the reason why your ideas lead not to utopia but a kind of secular hell where instead of equality, all you get is death. The blame is never on the ideas or socialism itself. You kind of lie to yourselves and shift blame. Sad really.
Socialists are people who think that their way of thinking is the only acceptable way and that if you dare disagree, you should be punished to some degree. Here lies the difference between Stalin and the NDP. The modern NDP won’t have you sent to the gulag, just hauled in front of a HRC kangaroo-court and fined. This is their “New” democratic party oppression. I suppose it’s a step up from mass murder.
The far-right (as far as it still exists) is identical but for what part of society they wish to oppress.
I’m reading this and laughing pretty hard now. What Warwick says about engineers is generally true. Engineers are typically libertarian (or conservative by default due to the lack of libertarian voting choices). I was at a house party a few weeks back with some local media peeps and someone said to me “every engineer I’ve met is a Conservative.”
But let’s not pidgeon hole all engineers as the same. Heck, of all the engineers I know ONE is a lefty. But I attribute that to her being born in Winnipeg, raised in Ottawa, and having a father who was a career civil servant. Not to a mental defect on her part. She never had a chance.
I am a liberal and a professional engineer in mechanical engineering. I also know of quite a few other liberal engineers none are in a computer related field.
The only software engineer that I know of is a conservative.
“Socialists are people who think that their way of thinking is the only acceptable way and that if you dare disagree, you should be punished to some degree.”
I’m sorry, I can’t recall, but I don’t think I have called for any one I disagree with to be punished? The only people I have met who demand rigid ideological adherence are right-wing, religious fundamentalists (Christians, Jews and Muslims)
Modern socialists must be completely ignorant of history. The record of socialism has been nothing but one of miserable failure, time and time again. Despite the best intentions of many of its ideological adherents, it invariably results in economic catastrophe and despotism. As ET says, everything falls to the lowest common denominator.
Socialism = the pursuit of mediocrity at best.
SLM….answer the question!!! When your insurance company is gone,because your company is gone where are you going to get your benefits?? Please answer WHO is going to give them to you?
Computer scientist and current masters E.E. here (in case anyone cares).
I’m logical and conservative. I don’t know if you can funnel a particular group in to one hard and fast ideology, but socialist vs conservative is as close as it comes. Socialists are boneheads, conservatives are realistic.
Face it, socialism is an abject failure. Capitalism, on the other hand, feeds people and progresses society. I wonder where Africa would be without the billions of dollars in aid? Long gone is my guess.
The amount of Aid does not even come close to the tariffs and subsidies that the Americans, Canadians and the EU have in place.
Debt relief and Aid is joke how about opening up our markets, or is one way trade only good for China.
Heric Holmes:
You’re missing the point. Africa wouldn’t have a hope in he** if it weren’t for progressive nations with – yes, it’s true – capitalist economic systems.
You see, as a conservative, I see the failures within capitalism, but they are far overshadowed by the complete and utter failure of socialism. What socialists have never understood is that, at the end of the day, you’re dealing with people. Everyone wants to work and to buy things and to better themselves. However, if you give them the opportunity to sit on their a** and have the state pay for everything, they’ll opt for that until they realize they are able bodied losers. When that realization comes, then they want everyone to pay (and I mean ‘pay’ in more than monetary terms) for their world ‘done wrong’. They don’t understand that hard work and entrepreneurship benefits the soul.
“conservatives are realistic”
Yup, that realism is all over the streets of Baghdad for everyone to see.
“I wonder where Africa would be without the billions of dollars in aid?”
I think they would be happier if we reduce agricultural subsidies that hurt their farmers.
Since we’ve already established that many of the frequent commentors on this site are in from engineering and science backgrounds ….. it would seem that we have an anomaly here in the person of SLM!
FWIW – his does not strike me as the thoughts of a reasoning and logical sort … however to be fair I suppose he deserves to be taken at his word.
That being said … every comment or argument put forth so far by the fellow has been an exercise in non sequitur , misdirection and confabulation….. not what I’d call the mark of a person who is sure of their facts and logic.
Postscript,
I think the main point in Africa is that in most African countries the ruling elite sees all the benefit of foreign aid and debt relief.
The rest of the population has to work super hard just to survive. There is no such thing as social assistance in the Congo for example.
Democratization and free trade are the only way to help these countries. Democratization reduces corruption and free trade would give them markets for their goods. No one wants to pay for it Canada included.
“That being said … every comment or argument put forth so far by the fellow has been an exercise in non sequitur , misdirection and confabulation….. not what I’d call the mark of a person who is sure of their facts and logic”
No, it is the mark of some one who uses humour and sarcasm.
Incidentally, do you take me at my word when I call for the destruction of western civilization? Do you think that I actually want to live under Sharia? As an atheist, do you think I want to live in a religious state?
Has it occurred to you, that a person may be logically opposed to Islamic extremism, yet disagree about the means to combat it? Could it be, that the ranting in the site, and all conservative blogs, have nothing to do with fighting Islam, and everything to do with internal politics?
Could it be, that what really drives the right, is the sense of helplessness they felt on 9/11. The humiliation, that a bunch of wack-jobs killed 3000 people, in such a horrific way, with nothing but box cutters. That humiliation, the weakness, the helplessness, the desire for some one be strong. The desire for clarity, out of what is clearly, a complex world. That is what drives the right.
Today, I have had people would call names, and call for my head to be cut off. Is this the “rationality” that conservatives display?
None of you are conservatives. You are nothing but scared little children, playing soldier, praying for some one to protect you. You huddle around each other for support, reassuring each other that you are right, that the world is coming to an end, and only each of you can save it. “Fighting” the battle from the safety of your keyboards.
In 20 years, when Europe is still around, when Israel still exists, when the Canadian troops are home, when people are still listening to Mozart, and reading Shakespeare, and immigrants are making their way in our society, what will you be then?
Alone, that’s what. Alone with yourself, and your silly little blogs. You’ll be like the Communists today, standing on lonely street corners, not even able to get yourself arrested for anything. Your time will have passed, and many of you will even deny having held the opinions your expressed to me today.
The world is going to survive, and you will have had nothing to do with it. If you’re lucky, in some history narrative about the early 21st Century, some one might make a brief comment about the intolerance of right-wingers in the post 9/11 world, but that will be it. That will be your legacy to humanity, a disorganized, online Nuremburg rally for angry ruffians with no where to go. Beyond that, no one will know, or care what happens here.
Wow. I’ve rarely ever commented on the whole “terrorism/security” issue, but SLM is so over the top it’s laughable.
The unique thing about this (and other) online communities is the varied demographic that come together to communicate. SLM seems to have stumbled in, with *his own* set of preconceived notions, and thinks he has everyone here figured out. Bravo, maestro.
BTW: I’ll look for your subsequent posts, along with your wisdom and guidance, after a dirty nuke gets dropped in the Toronto subway.
heric holmes:
I agree that the elite have the control. I happen to personally know individuals in African countries with direct ties to the government and very senior government officials. They will tell you that a majority of the aid we send to Africa never reaches the intended destination.
The Self-Loathing Multiculturalist:
You’re an ass, plain and simple. I don’t care that I call you names because I’m calling you what you truly are.
You have done what all extreme-leftist liberals and socialists do when their arguments hold no water, you resort to dogma and ideological crap that means nothing to no one – except that you can purport to say, “There, I know more than you”.
I, quite frankly, am scared. I’m scared of extremists in Islamic nations who want to destroy the Western world. I’m also scared of the extreme Left ideology that claims to be democratic and free, yet bustles with a fascist monster that lives below its public face.
I have no idea what you’re trying to say about ’20 years from now’ and the gibberish you wrote afterward. I’ll be happy in 20 yrs to be alive, plain and simple. In some ways it has everything to do with what is happening now in the Middle East, in other ways is has nothing to do with it.
The fact of the matter, and I make no apology for being (as you say) intolerant, because I hold to the belief that truth is not relative and truth is attainable. In your asinine way, you are being more intolerant than you can probably comprehend. This can be *truthfully* said of much of the extreme Left, though they loath to admit it. They are, in fact, more intolerant than the extreme Right they chide and denigrate.
SLM – a person may be logically opposed to Islamic extremism, yet disagree about the means to combat it?
Of course. Actually, I think you will find that there are quite of variety of opinions on this subject among “conservatives” expressed here. We don’t all agree with some of the more extreme positions or solutions proposed here.
I’m curious, how do you propose to fight Islamic extremism, SLM?
SLM. Wow, are you ever a jackass.
When your what, 20? years old being a left winger, self professed atheist, progressive, what ever you call your self, may be forgivable, when your 60 it is not. Your views are strictly yours. Thanks a bunch for expressing them. Exactly what is your point, people who read blogs are kooks? But, Trolls looking for conflict are saving the world?
Yep …. got this SLM Guy pegged alright!
Go point your finger at yourself little man.
Self-Loather….I do believe you have struck a nerve or two. Well done.
Quite easy to strike a nerve with this crowd. Look at these little children. Now, I’m irrational because I am an atheist? Really? Objectively speaking, there is no difference between SDA and an Islamic fundamentalist. They both want to see my head get cut off, though the Muslims at least have the guts to do it.
Let’s see what else. So far, they have wished for my head to get cut off, and for Toronto to get hit with a nuclear weapon. Let’s see what else they come up with?
As for combating Islamic extremism, it will be difficult in the short term, as the US has done much to poison the water. However, proposals for keeping the Middle East a nuclear weapons free zone, enforced by international inspections would be a useful start. Along with abiding by UN Security Council resolutions on resolving the Iraeli-Palestinian conflict. One needs to remember, that the opinions of SDA, LGF and so on not withstanding, Islamic terrorists are a fringe group. To combat terrorism, one must isolate the group, politically. That involves some level of engagement in the manner I mentioned above.
So far, they have wished for my head to get cut off…
Oh no, and after being an abortion survivor, too.
Did you just mention the toothless UN? OMG…you are too funny!
People, why do you bother talking with this fool, let him prattle on and ignore him, eventually the child will go away.
When the Sun Country Health District had a public meeting for input into their strategic plan, they showed us the provincial health goals, including “improved access to quality health care services” or something very close to that. I had to say, never mind “improved” and “quality.” There were a couple hundred of us at that meeting (they had booked a room for 30), and most of us were looking for “restored” access to “basic” health care services.
That was some months ago. Just this week, they finally restored enough services here to stop locking the hospital doors at 11 p.m. every night.
It’s just amazing how much armchair commies from the comfort of a capitalist society can piss in the wind and call it a refreshing rain shower.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWJN5eJxOuU
this video is about Lorne Calvert.
Here is what I have learned about the right in my visits here:
You oppose rights for women, minorities and gays. You want to see Toronto nuked, and you want to cut my head off.
There is one important difference between the Islamic fundamentalists and yourselves: they have the guts to actually do it.
The Islamic fundamentalists serve as stand-ins for your own, grotesque form of pornography, where you imagine yourselves cutting off the heads of leftists, abortion providers, atheists, etc. You do this, because you don’t have the guts to do it yourselves.
Incidentally, the 12th person to call for my beheading wins a free cadillac.
SLM, you have a strong desire to be self important, too bad you are not. No one wrote cut your head off. No one wished Toronto the good too be hit with an Atomic weapon. Who cares if you see your self as some sort of “bright”.Or, if you wish too pray to the fire lord Morlock for all I care knock yourself out. You want issues raised and conflict, you can always have both. I wonder however, regarding some of them, would that Noble prize winner Jimmy Carter fit into your equation when you pontificate about “The USA poisoning the waters” in the Middle east. Remember Mr Carter was the President when the US Embassy was over run, hostages held, and the Islamic radicalism was greatly emboldened.( Canada by the way got a good deal of Americans out of harms way. With considerable risk to their own lives. Thank you Mr. Ken Taylor)
Carter dithered endlessly, and was rightly seen as the weakest of the weak. The USA was greatly harmed across the planet by it’s inaction. Combined with Kommeni’s endless drive to reach the 14th century in the 20th, with the use of radical Saudi funding and the overt use of “multiculturalism” promoted by left of center governments in all jurisdictions on the globe. Now Pakistan is Nuclear, seems to be a couple of radicals in that country, at least the last time I looked. Your end result is what we have today, powerless western governments dithering endlessly trying to be all things to all peoples. Your right on one part however, it is indeed our own self loathing that got us there. There is a strong need for integration, rather than Multiculturalism. Don’t forget where your from, but, rather, where you are. No Sharia, no polygamy, no girls or boys getting mutilated, one law for everybody, regardless of colour of skin, religion, and treaty rights. Maybe check out Chris Hitchens, no conservative he, yet Hitch is spot on regarding
lots of things leftards hold tight to their bosom Maybe try Mark Steyn for a different flavor, both are excellent writers from different places.
Your comments about the Israeli/ Arab conflict being abated by peoples abiding by the UN’s declarations is laughable. What, they are all going to abide by the UN Human Rights Council? One might say in Harry S Truman’s words, that this has become a Do-Nothing ,Good for Nothing Council. The UN has enacted one resolution after another condemning a single state:Israel.
Hamas, Hizbollah, Zip Zero Ziltch.
Your comments regarding the ” Fringe group that is Islamic Terrorists” being isolated politically to garner results. How is that working for Hamas or Hizbollah? Federal Liberal, NDP, and Bloq members of parliament all have marched with these terrorist supporters here in Canada. The UN working ok in Sudan? Going to work with the Taliban?
Not going to be easy…might be an understatement.
Off with ‘is ‘ead!
Please leave the keys to my Caddi beside the tactical nuclear weapon. Don’t push any buttons.
“Hey idiot. You said it yourself earlier. It had nothing to do with islamofascism, and everything to do with ridding the country of the puppet soviet regime. And as far as the caliphate is concerned, I will not shoot the islamonutjobs until they are done beheading the moonbats. Promise!” The above is the exact quote. That is an explicit endorsement for cutting off my head.
The thing about Mark Steyn, is that he is completely wrong about everything. All of his predictions about Iraq, the middle east, Presidential elections, have been completely false. His demographics are nonsense, and are not born out by anyone who is actually familiar with demographic trends. There are at most, 15 million Muslims in all of Europe, in a population of 300 million. So, they are all going to become a giant, Sharia seeking bloc? No effect by intermarriage? No desire to integrate? Just one, big homogenous Muslim bloc.
Are you aware that different types of Muslims from different countries don’t get along? That Muslims from South Central Asia are regarded as inferior by Arabic Muslims? Of course you did, because you are an expert in everything.
The rest of your post in pure nonsense. The Shah of Iran was the worst torturer in the middle east, and backed by US power. If the Americans had allowed a democratic government in the 1950s, there would be no Islamic revolution. If the Americans had pursued detente with Iran, instead of pushing for conflict, and shooting down Iranian jetliners full of civilians, and arming Saddam Hussein to fight against them, things perhaps, might have been different.
The Iranians are nutjobs, to be sure. But they are hardly a military threat. Israel could destroy them by themselves if they wanted to.
I am absolutely amazed that a bunch of Western Canadians, who are more likely to be killed in a car accident, or by a bolt of lightening, are so worried about Islamic terrorism.
“Off with ‘is ‘ead!
Please leave the keys to my Caddi beside the tactical nuclear weapon. Don’t push any buttons.”
And I thought you had no sense of humour. Gentlemen, touchez.
Very well said Talkinghead, I think you touched the baby’s nerve!
…you imagine yourselves cutting off the heads of leftists, abortion providers, atheists, etc. You do this, because you don’t have the guts to do it yourselves.
No courage required. When leftards decimate themselves by aborting their young, we don’t cheer, but there is a quiet satisfaction in letting uncontrollable events take their course.
SLM
Why would conservative Canadians want to chop off your head?
We’re against multiculturalism and the barbaric uncivilized forces that it nurtures and promotes.
Neither do we want to light you on fire if you’re promiscuous nor bury you to the waist and hurl rocks at your head. Only chicken shit anonamous lefties throw rocks in Canada.
Conservatives on the other hand fight for the rights of women to KEEP thier clits safe from broken coke bottle loppers and those that promote them. We don’t want to kill you if you’re gay or the wrong religion, it’s only selfloathing multiculturalists that advocate for that.
“touchez”
I don’t doubt that selfloathing heads without bodies can croak out such loser-speak.
Conservatives won’t.
“We don’t want to kill you if you’re gay or the wrong religion, it’s only selfloathing multiculturalists that advocate for that.”
If you please, could you provide a link to where a multiculturalist advocates killing people if you are gay, or the wrong religion.
“I don’t doubt that selfloathing heads without bodies can croak out such loser-speak.
Conservatives won’t.”
What the hell does that even mean?
Stay on topic, or I’ll send this comments thread to mass delete land.
I think it’s the POK rearing it’s ugly head now. All in the name of a God.
Off topic?
Kate, don’t you realize that the fate of the entire free world hangs by a thread (heh) on what happens in the upcoming Sask election?
As Bob Edwards once said, the surest sign of getting old is the fact that you just can’t wait for the next election!