Reader Tips

Reader Tips 59 Comments

Welcome to the Wednesday (EBD) edition of SDA Late Nite Radio.
Tonight, under the aegis of SDA’s ongoing Cultural Outreach Program, which was hopelessly designed to further awareness and understanding between disparate communities, we present a Queen’s English translation of a volubly heated freestyle Rap Battle. The debate format is as follows: practitioner Hydrogen asserts his thesis, Boost is given the opportunity to provide his counterargument, and then the floor is opened to questions and comments.
Feel free to flamboast your crunkest Cronkites furilla in the comments.

59 Replies to “Reader Tips”

  1. Power to the….to the, umm…I forget:
    “Cuba’s Raul Castro has kept the system his brother Fidel used to repress critics, refusing to free scores of people imprisoned years ago and jailing others for ‘dangerousness,’ Human Rights Watch said in a report issued on Wednesday.
    “The assessment came at a critical moment, as President Barack Obama says he wants to “recast” ties with Cuba and Congress is considering lifting a ban on U.S. travel to the Communist-run island 90 miles from Florida.”
    (…)
    “The group documented more than 40 cases under Raul Castro in which Cuba has imprisoned individuals for ‘dangerousness’ because they sought to do things such as stage peaceful marches or organize independent labor unions….”

  2. organize independent labor unions….”
    Well….at least he got that part right, they ARE dangerous.

  3. Obama won’t change course on his healthcare reforms – not for all the tea-baggers in China:
    “It turns out the Chinese are kind of curious about how President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform plans would impact America’s huge fiscal deficit. Government officials are using his Asian trip as an opportunity to ask the White House questions. Detailed questions.
    “Boilerplate assurances that America won’t default on its debt or inflate the shortfall away are apparently not cutting it…”
    (h/t ghostofaflea.com)

  4. via Marginal Revolution – interesting idea
    “Monitoring the bureaucracy in Dubai
    Sheikh Mohammed oversees a cadre of undercover mystery shoppers…They pose as prickly members of the public seeking the government’s help. Their reports are instrumental in firings and promotions. No bureaucrat can be sure the demanding customer across the counter isn’t secretly reporting to the boss. Once in a while, Sheikh Mohammed turns up at 7:30 on surprise inspections. He’s been known to fire late-arriving managers on the spot.”

  6. NEW word for me? Are you one? I certainly am!
    Although I have to admit that I’m beginning to feel the pull toward anarchy, esp. considering HRCs, the Caledonia situation, the 4 taser-happy mountie-thugs who got off scot free in Vancouver, and that one of those 4 later killed a motorcyclist while drunk-driving and still hasn’t been charged. And oh yeah, those ultra-lite sentences for the Toronto Terrorists.

  8. Someone get this poor man an internet connection:
    “An elderly man who went out to fetch a morning newspaper ended up driving nearly 400 miles after getting lost and taking a wrong turn onto a major Australian highway, police said on Wednesday.”
    All that to read yesterday’s news today…

  9. The reality is we’ll never see a coast to coast freeway. Northern Ontario is simply cost prohibitive, and the west doesn’t really need it. Interesting though how you can go from Windsor, ON all the way to the tip of Nova Scotia without hitting a single traffic light, although there’s a couple rail road crossings.
    But we do need some sort of plan.

  10. Why am I always the last to know? Just read in the G & M that Maher Arar was a previous winner of something invented by the G & M called the Nation Builder award. Wasn’t this guy just awarded a million bucks or so for being tortured (by a bunch of his co-religionists?)

  11. How I enjoyed the translated rap battle, EBD. It would be amusing to see the reverse achieved – a rap dub of, say, Christopher Hitchens debating Alister McGrath.

  13. WSJ has this up wherein this: “Stephen McIntyre, who has emerged as one of the climate change gang’s Most Dangerous Apostates.”
    Canadian Stephen McIntyre is an apostate?
    Apostate: “–noun
    1. a person who forsakes his religion, cause, party, etc.*”
    …-
    “Revenge of the Climate Laymen
    Global warming’s most dangerous apostate speaks out about the state of climate change science.
    By ANNE JOLIS
    Barack Obama conceded over the weekend that no successor to the Kyoto Protocol would be signed in Copenhagen next month. With that out of the way, it may be too much to hope that the climate change movement take a moment to reflect on the state of the science that is supposedly driving us toward a carbon-neutral future.
    But should a moment for self-reflection arise, campaigners against climate change could do worse than take a look at the work of Stephen McIntyre, who has emerged as one of the climate change gang’s Most Dangerous Apostates. The reason for this distinction? He checked the facts.
    The retired Canadian businessman, whose self-described “auditing” a few years ago prompted a Congressional review of climate science, has once again thrown EnviroLand into a tailspin. In September, he revealed that a famous graph using tree rings to show unprecedented 20th century warming relies on thin data. Since its publication in 2000, University of East Anglia professor Keith Briffa’s much-celebrated image has made star appearances everywhere from U.N. policy papers to activists’ posters. Like other so-called “hockey stick” temperature graphs, it’s an easy sell—one look and it seems Gadzooks! We’re burning ourselves up!
    “It was the belle of the ball,” Mr. McIntyre told me on a recent phone call from Ontario. “Its dance card was full.”” (More)
    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704335904574496850939846712.html

  14. What a royally hilarious idea, exetaz. The results would certainly be edifying, albeit in a different…or maybe the same(?)…way…
    I think I confused myself, furilla. Way.

  15. NYTimes reports on O’s Potemkin village tour of Mao Stlong’s Heavenly Kingdom.
    Mao’s Potemkin village:
    “Visitors to that touristy section of the wall generally encounter a cacophonous melee of vendors, but on this day, the place was like a ghost town, courtesy of the Chinese authorities who had shut it down. (The same thing happened Tuesday when Mr. Obama sped through an empty-but-for-his-entourage Forbidden City.)”
    Mao says, O’s lough watels George’s faurt.
    …-
    “Obama’s Pacific Trip Encounters Rough Waters
    SEOUL, South Korea — For all of President Obama’s laying claim to the title of “America’s first Pacific president,” Asia was always going to be a tough nut for him to crack.
    Without the first lady at his side, he would not have the kind of round-the-clock coverage the first couple got during their inaugural tour of Europe.
    Without a popular gesture like elevating the plight of the Palestinian people to equal status of the Israelis, he would not be showered with the kind of praise he got for his speech to the Muslim world in Cairo.
    And without a stop in Indonesia, his boyhood home, he would not bask in the kind of adulation he received in Accra, Ghana.
    Instead, with the novelty of a visit as America’s first black president having given way to the reality of having to plow through intractable issues like monetary policy (China), trade (Singapore, China, South Korea), security (Japan) and the 800-pound gorilla on the continent (China), Mr. Obama’s Asia trip has been, in many ways, a long, uphill slog.
    So it is no wonder that on the last day of the toughest part of his trip — the China part — Mr. Obama took a hike: a brisk, bracing 30-minute climb up the Great Wall. Around 3:30 Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Obama’s mile-long motorcade arrived at the Badaling section of the Great Wall, which snakes over jagged, rocky mountains.
    Visitors to that touristy section of the wall generally encounter a cacophonous melee of vendors, but on this day, the place was like a ghost town, courtesy of the Chinese authorities who had shut it down. (The same thing happened Tuesday when Mr. Obama sped through an empty-but-for-his-entourage Forbidden City.)”
    http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2389542/posts

  16. Must-read Canadian blogger Terry Glavin links to an essay by Palestinian Journalist Khaled Abu Toameh:
    Abu Toameh:
    “If anyone is entitled to be called ‘pro-Palestinian,’ it is those who are publicly campaigning against financial corruption and abuse of human rights by Fatah and Hamas. Those who are trying to change the system from within belong to the real ‘pro-Palestinian’ camp.
    “These are the brave people who are standing up to both Fatah and Hamas and calling on them to stop killing each other and start doing something that would improve the living conditions of their constituents.
    “Instead of investing money and efforts in organizing Israel Apartheid Week, for example, the self-described ‘pro-Palestinians’ could dispatch a delegation of teachers to Palestinian villages and refugee camps to teach young Palestinians English. Or they could send another delegation to the Gaza Strip to monitor human rights violations by the Hamas authorities and help Palestinian women confront Muslim fundamentalists who are trying to limit their role to cooking, raising children and looking after the needs of their husbands.”
    (…)
    “The Palestinians do not need students and professors on university campuses to tell them that Israel is bad. They have already had enough of this incitement from Hamas, Fatah and other Arab media outlets and leaders.
    “It is time for the ‘pro-Palestinian’ camp in the West to reconsider its policies and tactics. It is time for this camp to listen to the authentic voices of the Palestinians – those that are shouting day and night that the Palestinians want good leaders and an end to lawlessness, anarchy and financial corruption.”

  17. that old patriot act just keeps popping its ugly little face up all the time.
    like something out of the hated fidel castro camp:
    3w.mainjustice.com/2009/11/09/holder-backs-senate-bill-on-expiring-patriot-act-powers/

  21. “Interesting article about the condemnation of conservative women by many on the Left.”
    Interesting article about the condemnation of conservative women by ALL on the Left.
    There.Fixed that for ya,Robert. BTW….excellent article

  23. California Twofer:
     
    It’s now official. The California Energy Commission says no to naughty television screens. Notice that the NYT uses the clumsy term “power guzzler” to evoke comparisons with “gas-guzzling” automobiles.
    “… some environmentalists … view the state as a model for the rest of the nation.”
     
    In completely unrelated news, the state’s budget woes continue. Legislative Analyst Marc Taylor “said the state will suffer annual deficits of more than $20 billion a year for the next five years, in part because it must begin repaying budget-balancing internal loans and funding shifts that Pacific Investment Management Co.’s Bill Gross, co-chief investment officer of the world’s biggest bond fund, last month called ‘accounting tricks that couldn’t fool a grade-schooler.’ ”
    Then again, public schools haven’t been doing all that well either.
    Gotta love that model, eh?

  24. Rumour has it that Brad Wall’s government–not Wall himself, of course, since he’s hiding out and afraid to show his face–will admit tomorrow that it has seriously mismanaged Saskatchewan’s finances.
    The cricket chirps from this site will easily out-decible Yeats’s bee-loud glade.

  25. Rumours to the contrary, England is not dead.
    Mancunian David Thompson at his finest: Artists For Gaia.
    The artful, applied essence of incisive, muscular, game-changing ridicule.
    Ouch.

  26. From the irony department:
    There was an article by a fool in Wednesday’s Toronto Star criticizing the fact that child poverty in Canada has not declined from where it was 20 years ago (and other child-related issues). The guy is currently at a Canadian university but was formerly “research coordinator and lead researcher of the 2005 UNICEF Report called Child Poverty in Rich Countries“.
    The major reason we aren’t making any progress on child poverty (or any other kind) is we’re all paying far too much in taxes that go to support parasitic, unproductive government jobs, including his former position at the World’s Most Corrupt Organization there in New York City. Cut government, cut taxes, cut regulation, let productive individuals do what they do best, and child poverty will soon disappear. It’s called capitalism. There’s no other way.

  27. May I offer a shout-out and kudos to xiat and EBD!
    xiat: I LOVE the technology related links you’ve been providing. Super interesting!
    EBD: Your political & other stories are superb.
    Contrast these with what the “schlock” one gets on the nightly newscast. No wonder I (and everyone else on here) is MUCH more informed than Joe & Jane Public!

  28. I learned of the existence of Anatoly Chernyaev and his diaries from Peterike at Belmont Club.
    The Spectator (UK) has recently been publishing evidence of direct infiltration and control by the Soviet Union of various British trade unions and the British Labour Party, based on the diaries of Chernyaev, a high-ranking Soviet official who later became one of Gorbatchev’s advisors.
    http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5506913/labour-and-the-kgb.thtml
    http://www.spectator.co.uk/essays/all/5504183/reaching-through-the-iron-curtain.thtml
    http://www.spectator.co.uk/essays/all/5530388/kinnock-and-the-kremlin.thtml
    They are well worth reading, in my opinion. I would not be surprised if similar direct connections exist in Canada.

  29. his former position at the World’s Most Corrupt Organization there in New York City. Cut government, cut taxes, cut regulation, let productive individuals do what they do best, and child poverty will soon disappear. It’s called capitalism. There’s no other way.
    Posted by: nv53 at November 19, 2009 2:53 AM”
    well nv, are you advocating a return to the beginning of the industrial age when all those youngsters in britain were fully employed at tuppence a day?
    or shall we just wait for ‘trickle down’ economic benefits to *finally* kick in?
    seems to me too much beer causes are stuff to ‘trickle down’ lots and lots.
    cut regulation to the bone and there will be increased employment cleaning up after plane crashes, building collapses, contamination in the food supply etc etc.

  30. A strange new mini-series has been playing on U.S. Television called The Prisoner. It’s based on a 1960’s TV series of the same name. The plot is both complex & convoluted.
    One key element of the strange community where the show is set is that everyone potentially spies on everyone else – think East Germany circa 1945-1989.
    When the main character inquired about why people were being spied upon, the response he received was: “Being a suspect means you’re guilty. It’s just a matter of time before determining of what.”
    When I heard this I immediately thought that this was the perfect slogan for Jennifer Lynch’s corrupt organization!

  31. For Torontonians: The TTC is up and running this morning after, what CTV calls, “a construction mishap.” Mishap, my foot. Gross incompetence bordering on criminal, IMO.
    “A city contractor doing road work unrelated to the TTC mistakenly drilled their way through the road and into the subway tunnel between St. Clair and Summerhill Stations.”
    This idiot had no idea, apparently, that the concrete he was moving was directly over a subway tunnel. Isn’t part of a contractor’s job to KNOW these things, especially when not knowing might endanger people’s lives — or shut down a main subway line used by hundreds of thousands of commuters?
    I hope this contractor gets hit in the pocketbook till it hurts. Better yet, I’d like to see him lose his construction license.
    We’re going to see more of this type of negligence from the whatever generation. It’s a runaway train that’s been barreling down the track for a long time.

  33. Let us see how this works.
    Barack Obama rewards big donors with plum jobs overseas
    http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29699_Page2.html#commentsform
    “…….when Beatrice Wilkinson Welters was nominated to serve as ambassador……”
    “Welters, a longtime advocate for underprivileged children, and her husband, Anthony, an executive with UnitedHealth Group, generated between $200,000 and $500,000 in donations to Obama’s presidential campaign and an additional $100,000 for his Inauguration……..”
    Two questions come to mind:
    1. would not 2 to 5k plus another 1k serve “the children” better than given to some politicos?
    2. did not, the wife and husband bought themselves a well paying job in something close to paradise, when you live in gov. supplied house and get paid for it?
    What happened to the underprivilleged?

  34. curious_george, if you want an example of what nv53 means check out the ethnic food cart program brought in by Toronto’s Silly Hall. 8 carts were allowed to sell food different from the regular street meat of hot dogs etc. They required special expensive carts containing on-site refrigeration, none of which worked. They were given sites at $15k a pop, which were in poor locations even construction sites. They could only have 3 others work with them at their site and on and on in stupid constricting regulations with the project under control of the Board of Health.
    Needless to say all of the 8 gave up the business and closed down. This is government run business at it height!
    Always remember ET’s mantra: socialists don’t judge success by the completion of the task but by the size of the bureaucracy. In this case the Board of Health has passed the baton and bureaucracy over to another department with probably the same result.

  36. From AoS, Obama: KSM trial results have been predetermined
    …“I don’t think it will be offensive at all when he’s convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him,” Obama told NBC’s Chuck Todd…
    Ace writes, “WHEN, not “if”. IS, not “might be”. Being a law professor and all that, Obama fully understands the semantic difference between “when” and “if”, and “is” and “might be”.”

  37. John Baird: “Say Mr. Rovinescu, have you approved my speech yet? I’m scheduled to give it tomorrow…”
    Calvin Rovinescu: “Quiet Johnny, the adults are talking. I’ll have to get back to you….?
    “Is it the lobbyists running the transport department or is the transport department running the lobbyists?”
    OTTAWA — Transport Minister John Baird on Wednesday denied any collusion with the major airlines to stymie a passenger bill of rights, saying the government has simply “been working constructively” with the industry.
    Baird was responding to an accusation by Newfoundland Liberal MP Gerry Byrne, who authored a motion last year calling on the government to protect the rights of air travellers in a federal law.
    Internal government documents obtained by Canwest News Service show the transport minister’s office privately pleaded with Canada’s major airlines to step up their lobby campaign “to stop this motion in its tracks” even as the minister at the time, Lawrence Cannon, publicly supported it.
    The motion passed unanimously in the House of Commons in June 2008 with the support of Cannon and Baird, who failed to bring forward legislation when he succeeded Cannon as transport minister in October 2008.
    The Conservative government launched Flight Rights Canada last September to inform air travellers of their rights, but only after airline executives reviewed several drafts, provided input, approved the final product, and signed off on the minister’s speech to launch the program — a process that raised the ire of a top bureaucrat involved, the documents show.”
    http://www.edmontonjournal.com/travel/collusion+with+airlines+Transport+Minister/2238249/story.html

  38. Worthwhile reading….:
    Earlier this month, the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO) awarded $5,000 to a black female newspaper carrier who insisted she had been arrested by police in early 2007 only because of her skin colour.
    Early one morning, Sharon Abbott was delivering newspapers to homes in Toronto’s west end. Police Sergeant Stephen Ruffino observed her car double-parked outside an apartment. Then he saw her re-enter the vehicle, turn left without signalling, drive without a seatbelt and swerve from side to side. When she got out again, Sgt. Ruffino tried to stop Ms. Abbott and give her a warning, but she failed to stop and identify herself several times. So he briefly scuffled with her, handcuffed her and detained her for 45 minutes.
    Although the HRTO found no “conscious” racism on Sgt. Ruffino’s part, it nonetheless concluded his actions were motivated by a deep-seated prejudice … of which he was apparently entirely unaware.
    The Tribunal also stated, without substantiation, that white people in authority have “an expectation of docility and compliance” from black people they encounter.
    We guess we’re behind on the latest politically correct dogma, but hasn’t the traditional racist stereotype of blacks depicted them as violent, unpredictable criminals — which is to say, the very opposite of docile and compliant? The world of official human rights has entered such a surreal la-la-land that its mandarins can’t even keep it straight in their heads what stereotypes and prejudices they’re supposed to be fighting.
    In fact, we’ll be honest: Not a single person on this editorial board had ever heard of the “expectation of docility and compliance” that is supposedly rampant in the minds of white people. It’s almost like the Human Rights Tribunal… made it up.
    Government officials inventing, promoting, and publishing brand new racist stereotypes. Your tax dollars at work, Canada.
    Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/story.html?id=2239821#ixzz0XJsbmUHn

  40. Audio lecture:
    Thomas G. Mahnken, China’s Strategic Culture
    China’s rise is transforming the Asia-Pacific strategic landscape, and understanding how ‘China’ thinks preoccupies governments across the region.
    At the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy on 18 November, Thomas Mahnken explored features of China’s national strategic culture, including a sense of cultural superiority, a belief that China’s natural position is that of the ‘Middle Kingdom’ as well as the need for China to be unified internally and free from external meddling.

  43. hardboiled….
    I wouldn’t put a label on myself, what I know is that the future is coming fast and furious. Many people are overweighted with paradigms they consumed for so long and unable to move. Few others are sensing the thunder on the horizon. Let me twist some rhetorics: industrial concepts of government for the masses has polluted social and economic environment to the point of rapid political climate change. In simple words: the system has been turned upside down when the society operates for sustaining of the government and its bureaucracy.
    The phenomenon of Sarah Palin is very symptomatic and by phenomenon I don’t mean her persona, I mean reactions her persona evokes. It really doesn’t matter what she stands for as long as she would be willing to break from the mold. Although, she is only one of many illuminated spots of change that are coming.

  44. Simon, these are very interesting links you provided.
    I have a theory that KGB actively infiltrated Canada, which is their prime target due to its geographic position. I suspect they have strategically place people to come to positions of power in order to use Canada as a gun at US’s temple with rampant immigration of troublemaking elements from terrorist-reach regions of the world.
    How else can we explain the preferential treatment of anyone from terror prone zones over those who are reliable and loyal?

  46. PET Cemetery swallows Liberal Iffy’s puffin:
    “The Charter of Rights, a landmark of Liberal iconography, has practically vanished from the government lexicon.”
    …-
    “A record of conservative achievement
    Adam Daifallah, National Post
    When the first history books are written about Stephen Harper’s time in power, they will likely focus on the reunification of the Canadian right, the ending of Liberal hegemony in Ottawa, and his stewardship of the economy following the 2008 financial meltdown.
    Harper’s most important achievement, however, will take years, and possibly decades, to fully evaluate: the way in which he changed official Canadian discourse into one that is more politically conservative in nature.
    Since taking power in 2006, Harper and key members of cabinet have made a number of quiet, deft moves that have removed the spotlight away from symbols and narratives associated with the Liberal Party specifically, and a liberal worldview more generally.
    Under Harper, there has been a greater emphasis on the military, a shift in tone on foreign policy toward more support for democratic allies, and a new willingness to take principled actions at the United Nations, such as the Canadian-led walkout on Iranian tyrant Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s hate-filled harangue in September. The Charter of Rights, a landmark of Liberal iconography, has practically vanished from the government lexicon.
    The latest example of this new approach is Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s revised guidebook for new Canadians.” (more)
    http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/story.html?id=2239843

  47. Good post maz2
    I see you beat hardboiled to the punch,oh wait,hardboiled only quotes negative pieces on Harper.This from someone who continuously preaches removing one’s partisan blinders.

  48. Aaron, thanks.
    A book I recommend that bears directly on Canadian-based KGB spying and subversion is:
    Hugh Hambleton, Spy: Thirty Years with the KGB
    by Leo Heaps (c) 1983
    It’s a case study. Heaps was best friends with Hambleton as a kid, though they drifted apart as a result of their WWII experiences. Heaps wrote the book to find out why Hambleton decided to work for the KGB and what he did (a great deal of damage, stealing wholesale from NATO and later, as an academic and representative of the Canadian government, influencing governments in favour of the Soviet Union). There are several loose ends in the book, which in part are there because Heaps could not directly repeat what he was told by Hambleton (after Hambleton was convicted in Britain, under Thatcher), due to the Official Secrets Act.
    Heaps asks: Who was protecting Hambleton in Canada? Who provided him Privy Council documents?

  49. Posted by: h.ryan at November 19, 2009 2:09 PM
    I expect Harper to do good things. I expect Harper to keep promises. Unlike the thieving Libranos, who still posses some $43 million dollars within Quebec riding associations.
    I lived through the 14 years of embarrassment of that thug Cretin, and the kleptocrats the Libranos became. I witnessed our image abroad decay. I witnessed an embarrassing foriegn policy – and was humiliated by the Libranos exploitation of anti-Americanism in Canada for their electoral benefit*.
    When the Cons obfuscate on freedom if information requests; when they actively screw Kevin Page and the PBO over; when they raise taxes (pension plan contributions Jan 09, EI contributions 2010-2016, and Prentice’s impending Green Shift – forever); when they appoint 27 party bagmen and loyalists as senators; and call an unnecessary election against their own fixed date law, I call them on it.
    As should every conservative (and frankly, every upstanding citizen) should.
    Partisan blowboys on the other hand, ignore these, or make excuses for the Con’s failures, and are thankful that it’s simply ‘our’ people at the trough.
    Things like the new citizenship handbook are a wonderful change – and a great improvement in how this nation should be run.
    Appointing the unelected Quebec bagman Fortier to the Senate to get him into cabinet – cannot – and should not be ignored, nor forgiven. It was a calculating, cynical move that did nothing for the nation, except help some greasy blowboys to the public teat. (That, and the $175k in office renos he approved before leaving).
    Hope that clarifies my motivations, and may go some ways to explaining why my name isn’t ‘mushy-middle’.
    peace
    * my employment and travels take me to the States. Alot. Being asked questions by our American cousins about people stomping on bush dolls and anti-americanism has been one of the lowlights of my exchanges with them.

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