24 Replies to “Reader Tips”

  1. Excerpt from Robert Redeker’s opinion piece (translated from the French) “The Incompatibility of Islam and the West”, published in Le Figaro:
    “The Qur’an is from the outset a political book. Before offering the reader biography (in the form of the life and achievements of Muhammad), hagiography (the life told in the manner of a legend), and spirituality, the Koran presents itself as a political book. On the one hand, the Prophet’s life is indeed that of a party boss, a clan chieftain, a military leader who did not hesitate to shed blood and to engage in intrigues that unfold in the heat of battle and political conflict. On the other hand, the Koran is a collection of political laws describing precisely how society should be organized and governed. Hence this book, and the religion it established, Islam, is a matrix that has given rise to societies made in its own image. These are societies in which theology and politics have been intimately fused together, forming a jumble that makes it impossible to distinguish between that which is essentially political and that which is essentially religious.”
    The whole thing here.

  5. Absolutely useless coverage of the U.S. election on CBC tonight. No exit polls, only sporatic figures on the bottom of the screen. Time-filling documentaries on such non-sequitors as why there aren’t more women in politics as there supposedly are in the States (at least in top positions).
    Other pieces on why mid term elections are always difficult for incumbents, so the bad results should be taken with a shaker of salt.
    Scott Reid telling us that the Tea Party means bad news for Canada as they are ‘nativists’ and therefore protectionists (as opposed to the free trade loving Democrats and the unions that support them?).
    Switched to U.S. stations only to see journalist Cookie Roberts who must be even older than I am (58) with no wrinkles on her face. All the journalists look like zombies now on t.v. – aliens all. And the youngest ones are not allowed to have a single wrinkle on their faces.

  6. Nicola, yes, I know, wrinkles kind of suck. You need the FoxNews channel so that you do not have to watch CBC.
    The US mid term elections are resulting in Obama’s socialist agenda coming to a halt.

  7. Nothing is more exciting than watching a gifted child. In grades 1-2, my son had an IQ test–he scored 121. Teacher said he needed to be bumped up one year so he could have a challenge.
    We went to the school board, they refused. At the same time, a group was being formed for gifted kids. The school board gave us all of $300 dollars to help out.
    One child alone (same grade) was allocated a special ed teacher. At that time, I would estimate about $15,000 per year. A year later, they built a special recycling plant in our community for slow learners, costs were over $600,000.
    I guess we’re a society that just doesn’t recognize intelligence. The kid quit school in Grade 10, he was bored. He did OK, today, he does satellite TV, internet and phone installations on contract. I guess it beats crushing cans all day.

  8. Speaking of Holy smokes … does anyone know what is happening with Proposition 19 – Legalize Marijuana in California?

  9. Sorry to hear that Sherriff Smith, but you’re correct; significantly more money goes to funding programs for the marginalized and persons with disabilities than to gifted children. Unfortunately, The societal notion is that gifted kids have it made.

  11. When my daughter was in grade four, her teacher said he was sorry there was no gifted program in the area because he wasn’t able to “challenge” her, as he put it.
    You’re right Sherriff Smith: We put far more resources into “special ed” for the struggling students (largely due, IMO, to parental neglect at home [related to single parenthood, which no one will touch with a 100-foot pole]) than we do to encourage the bright kids: They’re on their own.
    What a waste of resources. Most of our best and brightest, unless you can afford to send your child to a private school, are left to languish in a Gawd-awful public system. This is the end result of the Nanny State, which doesn’t want bright, thinking-outside-the-box individuals lurking in their system. ‘Best to snuff out their inquiring minds through boredom and neglect.

  12. “From Eyjafjallajökull to Grímsvötn”
    “A New Volcanic Threat from Iceland”
    “Just over two months after officials declared Eyjafjallajökull dormant, Icelandic geophysicists say a separate volcano is showing signs of life. Grímsvötn volcano may be about to blow its top — and European air travel could once again be affected.
    In April, it was Eyjafjallajökull. Now, there is a new threat from Iceland to European air travel: Grímsvötn.
    Meltwater is currently gushing from a glacier above Iceland’s most volatile volcano, suggesting significant sub-glacial seismic activity. On Monday geophysicists told reporters that the flood at the remote southeastern Vatnajökull glacier could be an indication that the Grímsvötn volcano underneath is about to erupt once again — raising fears of a repeat of the immense ash clouds last spring which seriously disrupted both trans-Atlantic and European air travel.
    So far, says Gunnar Gudmundson from the Icelandic Meteorological office, no underground tremors have been detected. Such tremors are often a reliable signal of an impending eruption. But scientists are monitoring the mountain closely for further tell-tale indications that it is about to blow its top.”
    http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,726726,00.html

  13. Left-liberal Disaster.
    Voodo Jean? Where are you?
    “the battle to prevail over the cesspool of Port-au-Prince.”
    Where is Liberal Iggy?
    “His tank has a capacity of 2,000 liters (528 gallons), but he could use a bigger one.”
    …-
    “Haiti’s Cholera Disaster
    Epidemic Underscores Lack of Progress after Earthquake
    Haiti, the battered Caribbean island, is fighting a new enemy: Thousands have fallen ill with cholera and hundreds have already died. The government and international aid organizations are desperately trying to prevent the epidemic from reaching the capital.
    Once a day, a stench descends upon the Champ de Mars when David Larose arrives in his small truck to empty the portable toilets.
    Even the people who have been living here for months, in tents or huts made of refuse — the people who, since the earthquake on Jan. 12, have stoically endured their fate while surrounded by the constant odor of squalor — turn away in disgust at this overpowering stench.
    Larose is the head of the hygiene team responsible for the Champ de Mars, a park in the center of the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince. He has a driver and an assistant who starts the pump when he tells him to, who repairs it when it gets clogged and who fetches the bucket containing the toxic blue liquid that is used to disinfect the sidewalk whenever there’s a spill. But the real work, the work of pumping out the toilets, is Larose’s job. He does it without a mask or gloves. He isn’t worried about catching anything, because he’s convinced that he is immune.
    It takes Larose’s pump two minutes to suck out the contents of each toilet. His tank has a capacity of 2,000 liters (528 gallons), but he could use a bigger one. Then he wouldn’t have to make the one-hour, round-trip journey to the dump as often.
    He is fighting a hopeless battle, the battle to prevail over the cesspool of Port-au-Prince.”
    http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,726563,00.html

  15. d Quite the article. I knew this stuff went on but I had no idea they would replace people for doing what’s right. Mb. should just sell the degrees and save time.

  16. Apparently Democratic views on defence didn’t pass muster:
    Spencer Ackerman, GOP Wins; Afghanistan, Gitmo, ‘DADT’ Fights Loom
    The Republicans didn’t just win big last night, taking back the House of Representatives. They beat most of the top Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee. Which means the Obama administration better get ready for two years of tough hearings on everything from Afghanistan to Gitmo, tanker planes to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
    Take a last look at the membership list of the House committee. Longtime Democratic leader and outgoing chairman Ike Skelton of Missouri lost his seat. So did next-up John Spratt of South Carolina. So did next-up-next-up Solomon Ortiz of Texas (though a recount is possible). So did naval-subcommittee chairman Gene Taylor of Mississippi. So did Georgia’s Jim Marshall, New Hampshire’s Carol Shea-Porter, Virginia’s Glenn Nye, Maryland’s Frank Kratovil, Alabama’s Bobby Bright and New York’s Scott Murphy. Three other Democrats retired from the committee — one of them, Pennsylvania’s Joe Sestak, lost a Senate race last night — and things look tough for Washington’s Rick Larsen as well….

  18. “Water, water everywhere,/Nor any drop to drink” as the Left tries to recreate the hydraulic despotisms of ancient times.
    (Via Advancing a Free Society) Laura Huggins, Will the West’s “Water Woes” lead to more flows?
    For those of us living in the West, it’s a no-brainer that water is more valuable than gold. But if it’s so valuable then why isn’t it trading in a similar fashion to gold? Short answer: a maze of institutional barriers….
    Gary D. Libecap, Water Woes: Using Markets to Quench the Thirst of the American West (PDF)

  19. “The Institute honours … his historical campaign against superstitious and supernatural explanations of natural phenomena, and in favour of rational scholarship. He dramatically departed from previous epistemological traditions by relentlessly combating superstition and charlatanism, often at great personal risk. He had a deep influence on the emergence of subsequent generations of rationalist scholars and philosophers who paved the way for modern scientific thinking.”
    Hmmm. Now who that could be?

  20. PET Cemetery: Our O’s Hope has crumbled to Fear.
    We hate Pea Tartiers.
    Yours,
    LibIggyRae and Taliban Jack LaytoNDP.
    P.S. “For two years, Obama was allowed to hope”.
    ” he is confronted by the stark hatred of the Tea Party movement.”
    A German left-liberal O’spiel.
    O’s Flight: The Flight To Varennes*.
    “On Thursday, US President Barack Obama will be leaving Washington behind. He is embarking on a trip to Asia,”.
    …-
    “Obama’s Election Debacle
    A Settling of Accounts with Mr. Perfect”
    “The Democrats suffered a debacle at the polls in the US on Tuesday — and President Barack Obama is to blame. Once celebrated as a great communicator, the president has lost touch with the mood in his country. Now, he must re-invent himself. But can he succeed?
    On Thursday, US President Barack Obama will be leaving Washington behind. He is embarking on a trip to Asia, including a stop in Indonesia. The flight is a long one — almost an entire day. But Obama lived for a time in Indonesia as a child, and the feeling of being at home is something the president could use these days.
    After the Congressional elections on Tuesday, it is certainly not a feeling he can enjoy in the US. The president can analyze the results all he wants, the dramatic losses his Democrats experienced at the polls and the loss of control of the House of Representatives. But he is unlikely to find a simple answer to the question as to how he should proceed.
    To the right he is confronted by the stark hatred of the Tea Party movement. In the political center, voters abandoned Obama in droves. And on the left there are complaints that instead of Mr. Change, Obama has turned into Mr. Weakling. Young voters and African Americans are, of course, still behind Obama, but many of them didn’t even bother to cast their ballots on Tuesday.
    The debacle, the largest loss of seats for the president’s party in more than half a century, isn’t just a warning for Obama. It is a demolition. For two years, Obama was allowed to hope that he had managed to capture the heads of American voters in addition to their hearts. In fact, however, he only managed to find his way to their hearts, and only for a short time.”
    http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,726905,00.html
    *Flight To Varennes:
    The Flight to Varennes ****
    On the 20 June 1791, Louis XVI, … Unfortunately for the King, the royal party made it only as far as the small town of Varennes. A man called Drouet, who was a local postmaster, recognized them.”
    http://library.thinkquest.org/C006257/revolution/flight_to.shtml

  21. Bill Sizemore, Replica plane visits Norfolk to mark birth of naval aviation
    It was not an everyday sight on the flight line at Norfolk Naval Station’s Chambers Field.
    A spindly little aircraft – essentially a motorized tricycle with wings – emerged from the clouds, touched down and puttered to a stop outside a hangar Tuesday.
    The 1,000-pound plane is a replica of those flown by Eugene Ely, the first man to take off from and land on a ship in 1910 and 1911 – the birth of naval aviation. It’s in Norfolk for next week’s centennial observance of Ely’s first shipboard takeoff, which occurred in Hampton Roads on Nov. 14, 1910….

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