45 Replies to “Reader Tips”

  2. I wonder how Iggy feels about a coalition now. It’ll be Prime Minister Layton, and Iggy won’t even make it to cabinet.
    The whole thing is more surreal than anything by Dali.

  6. After viewing the “God save the Queen” link, I thought perhaps we just ought to ask her to come over and run things, better than any other choices I have seen lately.

  9. Just a thought, but instead of taking my perfectly good incandescent bulbs out and replacing them with those curley Q ones, couldn’t I just shut my light out when I’m not in the room?
    That’s what my Grandma did, but of course, as Adler pointed out a few weeks ago, they “Didn’t know about the Green thing”

  10. NATO Does it Again in Libya
    A NATO BLAST from the Past:
    The UN-sanctioned war in the Balkans was all about oil and the pipeline easement for Caspian Sea oil to Western European markets through Kosovo to the Mediterranean Sea. When Yugoslavia refused to play ball with the International Monetary Fund, the U.S. and Germany began a systematic campaign of destabilization, even using some of the veterans of Afghanistan in that “war.” Yugoslavia was broken up into compliant statelets, and the former Soviet Union was contained. The outcome: the de facto U.S. occupation of Kosovo–where America built its largest military base since the Vietnam War.
    http://tinyurl.com/3srqako

  12. @Oz: oh cripes the ‘no blood for oil’ ahistorical BS comes to SDA. That is tripe Yugoslavia broke up for the same reason the USSR did (not that I sanction NATO’s war there).
    Publius has another article up. Apparently that piece of work John Baird actually said that the Cons won’t engage in the “slash and burn” of the public service that those mean Liberals did. Give yourselves all a pat on the back. Canada’s Right is dead and you guys killed it.
    http://godscopybook.blogs.com/gpb/2011/04/incrementalism-you-can-believe-in.html

  13. Michael Ignatieff, The Rights Revolution. The topic is alleged “group rights”.
    Ignatieff: “The world’s biggest problem is not climate change or the supposed clash of civilizations or inequality between rich nations and poor ones – as important as these problems are. The fundamental problem facing humanity is political: how to create stable political order among peoples of different religious cultures and economic classes.” (foreword, page viii)
    Actually the fundamental alternative in the universe is life or death, and the fundamental moral principle of a civilized society is that no person has the right to initiate the use of force or fraud on any other. The solution to a problem like the so-called “clash of civilizations” is to respect this moral principle.
    Later: “individualist rights regimes do not capture the dilemmas faced by societies that are both multi-ethnic and multinational (i.e., composed of founding minorities who require, as a condition of continuing membership in the state, recognition of their rights to language, culture, education and self-government).” (12-13).
    Individual rights regimes are the only ones that can deal with these problems. The illegitimate concept of “group rights” is the root of the problem, not the solution.
    Ignatieff on the individual versus the group: “Some religious groups – ultra-Orthodox Jews, fundamentalist Muslims, and evangelical Christians, for example – have restricted the rights of women to participate fully in the rituals and decision-making processes of their faiths. These groups contend that they exist not to protect the rights of individuals but to obey the word of God, and since God has authorized certain forms of female submission, asking these groups to respect women’s rights is to ask them to sacrifice their identity for the sake of secular liberal principles.” (72)
    Also: “Many of our toughest choices involve reconciling our belief that groups should have the right to protect their identities from outside pressures with our equal belief that they shouldn’t oppress the individuals inside them.” (18)
    A group’s identity is merely a descriptive characteristic that may change over time, based on the free actions of individuals within it, so this is not something that can be protected by law.
    He points out that some: “… think group purposes should prevail over freedom of choice. … They say that if society protects individual rights of protest and exit, it will end up destroying the group.” (18-19)
    To which the only proper answer is: Too bad. Only slaves have no right of exit.
    Here’s a somewhat tangled paragraph: “Because the state protects these groups – by providing police, social and welfare services – it has the right to insist that the group respect the basic laws of the state. Yet the state has no right to intervene, except when the rituals involve direct physical harm to individuals. If religions ban women from parts of the ritual, it is no business of the state to enforce their participation. If, on the other hand, members of religions groups seek the state’s help to leave or to exercise rights in the society outside, such as seeking an education or marrying someone of their own choosing, then the state has a duty to intervene, simply to enable those individuals to exercise those same rights as other citizens. Likewise, if individuals seek entry to a group and are barred on discriminatory grounds, they should have rights of recourse.” (73)
    It is true that a private organization such as the Roman Catholic church has the right to maintain its traditions, including its refusal to ordain women priests, and that the state has no right to interfere due to the principle of freedom of religion. The basic laws of the state are intended precisely to address direct physical harm to individuals.
    One has the right to leave any group, but a forced exit, such as an excommunication, is “the group leaving you”. Similarly, I can refuse to join any group if I wish, but the group can also “refuse to join me”, and I do not have a right of recourse. All these are legitimate exercises of freedom of association. One of the most disgraceful moments in the history of the Supreme Court of Canada occurred when judge Bertha Wilson falsely wrote that the Charter right of freedom of association did not include the right not to associate. That would negate the laws against stalking, for starters.
    Here is Ignatieff on multiculturalism: “In supposedly secular and neutral liberal democracies, the designation of Sunday as a day of rest, together with the nomination of Christmas and Easter as public holidays, privileges Christian denominations over others.” (69-70)
    Aboriginals notwithstanding, Canada was founded by Christian settlers, so naturally they would choose these public holidays.
    And: “… there are two ways for a liberal state to go: to reassert neutrality by ceasing to observe rituals and holidays specific to the dominant group, or to recast neutrality as the encouragement of all groups (that is, to become multicultural). … In the multicultural response, the state subsidizes the cultural activities of a wide number of groups and designates days of the public calendar to the celebration of the heritage of as many groups as it can. … this multiculturalist policy does not amount to an endorsement of group rights. It simply seeks to protect and enhance the capacity of as many individuals as possible to secure public recognition of their different cultures.” (70)
    It is not the function of government to “publicly recognize” various cultures, nor to subsidize them, which violates taxpayers’ rights. A government does not have the right to prevent persons from a particular background from celebrating their own culture insofar as it is non-coercive, but the celebrants should pay for it themselves.
    Finally: “… cultural authority … is the right of the majority to define what the country ‘stands for’, and how it is seen by itself and the rest of the world.” (118)
    This is not by any stretch of the imagination a task for government, nor indeed by any other kind of “authority”. Observe that this contradicts his earlier comments about multiculturalism. What if the cultural majority decides that it stands for Christmas, Easter and a Sunday day of rest?
    On a related issue, this thought: “Too much immigration too fast can overwhelm the capacity of societies to treat people fairly and help them make a new start. Too little immigration turns rich societies into rich and unequal clubs.” (37)
    The real problem is cultural practices that may be violent, which cannot be allowed in a civilized society. Treating people fairly is not a problem for a system based on the rights of the individual.

  14. So you and Alex bring out that “no blood for oil” line at the same time huh, libertariansmartass?
    What a coinkydink.
    So, is your position that the Soviet Politburo voted themselves out of existence and killed Tito just to wrap things up?
    Talk about your conspiracy theories, that one takes the cake and shoves it into MacArthur’s Park too.

  15. you know, a lot of girls I went out with loved that song, but honestly I never really got it!

  16. Oz, you’ve completely misunderstood what I was saying. You’re the one whipping the ‘no blood for oil’ shlameel, not me.

  17. A final look at The Rights Revolution, by Michael Ignatieff. The topic is Quebec and Canada’s national unity.
    Ignatieff: “What makes Canada’s achievement distinctive? While all modern democracies protect rights, our system is special in the way it reconciles individual and group rights.” (foreword, page viii)
    It isn’t, it doesn’t, and “group rights” is an anti-concept that should be removed from the law.
    He continues: “Both our federal and provincial charters protect the group rights to language in order to guarantee the preservation of the French fact in North America.” (viii)
    There is no “group right to language”; however, a legislative body should choose an appropriate official language.
    Ignatieff: “We have become a model for the world of how to balance majority and minority interests and how to maintain the unity of a complex federation.” (ix)
    We almost didn’t, back in 1995; this is typical Canadian narcissism.
    Ignatieff: “The recent SCC ruling on secession … understands two key ideas about rights. The first is that they often conflict: Quebecois rights of self-determination conflict with Canadian rights to territorial integrity, for example.” (9)
    Genuine rights do not conflict. Neither of these is a “right”. Freedom of association is a right – apply it here on the broad scale.
    Also: “… individualist rights regimes do not capture the dilemmas faced by societies that are both multi-ethnic and multinational (i.e., composed of founding minorities who require, as a condition of continuing membership in the state, recognition of their rights to language, culture, education and self-government).” (9)
    An individual rights regime is the only way to deal with this alleged dilemma, because it upholds the fundamental moral principle of a civilized society, namely that no person has the right to initiate the use of force or fraud on any other person.
    The “right to language” is an individual right to speak the language of one’s choice. Again, it is reasonable and likely necessary for a political entity to choose an official language, such as French in Quebec. There is no such thing as a group “right to culture”, because a culture is the product of a vast number of individual choices and creations. There is the right to educate oneself and to trade with others for the purpose of providing it, but there is no group right to education. We have the right to proper government, namely one that defends and protects individual rights – as opposed to “self-government”.
    Ignatieff: “What makes the Canadian political story so interesting has been the way in which women’s organizations, aboriginal groups and ordinary citizens have forced their way to the table and enlarged both the process of constitutional change and its results. Canada has moved away from a constitutional debate dominated by governments and first ministers to a system of constitutional renewal driven essentially by citizens, interest groups and nations.” (7)
    Which “ordinary citizens” forced their way to the table? The squeaky wheel gets the grease; is this an “interesting” form of mob rule? Aren’t most of these interest groups funded by government, and don’t they falsely claim censorship when that waste of taxpayers’ money is finally, and properly, cut off? Weren’t the 1992 unity conventions mostly attended by the government’s appointees rather than “ordinary citizens”? Elsewhere he says, “in the old days, politics was about interests” (page 17). Here he inadvertently admits that “group rights” are about interests rather than about genuine rights.
    The passage continues: “Constitutional change might have begun with Prime Minister Trudeau’s desire to anchor Canadian unity in the equality of individual rights. But by the time the process had finished, Canadians had insisted that individual rights were not enough: guarantees for collective language rights, women’s equality, multicultural heritage, and aboriginal land claims had been forced into the Charter … ” (7)
    Men and women have equal individual rights. There is no right to multicultural heritage, but there certainly is the individual right to celebrate one’s cultural traditions in one’s own way as long as doing so does not interfere with the rights of others – i.e., at one’s own expense. Aboriginal land claims is a messy issue, but there too the solution is on the side of individual rights.
    Note also this: “Group rights – to language, culture, religious expression and land – are valuable to the degree that they enhance the freedom of individuals. This suggests that when group rights and individual rights conflict, individual rights should prevail.” (24)
    So they should. Yet overall the book leaves the strong impression, based on abundant evidence, that its author believes the opposite.
    Ignatieff: “Canada’s political history since 1968 can be told as the story of the unwillingness of the majority to discard the connection between equality, individual rights and group assimilation. … Pierre Trudeau … believed that rights equality for all Canadians might offer a way out of the emerging constitutional impasse between Quebec and Canada, and between aboriginal peoples and the majority community.” (62-63)
    And: “Faced with the demand by French Canadians that their language and culture receive special protection, Trudeau replied that what required protection was not the rights of a community but the rights of individuals …” (63)
    He would have been right had that been what he actually believed. Rarely in his sixteen years as prime minister did Trudeau show much concern for the rights of individuals.
    Ignatieff: “With Native peoples, Trudeau believed the problem lay in their inequality as individuals, which in turn was the fault of the Indian Act. Under its terms, aboriginals were made wards of the national government. They did not enjoy an equality of rights with other Canadians. Their social subjugation and misery could only be corrected if they were accorded full citizenship rights as individuals.” (63)
    This sounds like another way of saying that the aboriginals’ biggest problem is that they were socialized and paternalized before the rest of us.
    Ignatieff: “To both groups [French-Canadians and aboriginals], therefore, the government offered a renewal of the national union based on equality of rights. In the aboriginal case, the policy was intended to bring an end to the distinct-group status imposed by paternalist legislation. If aboriginal peoples wished to maintain their customs and traditions, that was a private matter for them to decide.” (63-64)
    Indeed it is. But is this not the real meaning of a right to one’s culture – an individual rather than a group right?
    Ignatieff: “The Charter that [Trudeau] intended to leave as his legacy did not grant group rights to Quebecers or aboriginal peoples. Its entire spirit was to protect individuals from the tyranny of the state and the tyranny of majorities.” (65)
    This passage is revisionist. No one did more than Pierre Trudeau to increase the power of the state over the individual in Canada. Our tax bills and the vast bureaucracies prove it. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is extremely inconsistent when it comes to individual rights, and it contains dozens of errors.
    More: “For the majority community of English-speaking Canadians, his vision has proven enduringly attractive. No privileges for any groups, but equal rights for all. All provinces to be treated the same. All individuals to be treated with justice. This vision was supposed to pull the country together. In reality, it came close to pulling the nation apart.” (65)
    Treating all individuals “the same” and “with justice” tended to pull the country apart? Surely you jest. How much of the pulling apart was due to the interest groups that forced their way to the table, as Ignatieff celebrates on page 7? Perhaps the separatists should be blamed more than Trudeau, but what is not at fault is the concept of individual rights. The enduring Trudeau vision – which was not based on individual rights – goes a long way to explain why the country is in rough shape.
    Observe that the alleged “no privileges for any group” of Trudeau is contradicted by the “affirmative action” Charter clause, section 15(2). “All provinces to be treated the same” is not the same thing as individual rights. And human rights commissions do not treat people with justice, the Charter legal rights section s.11 exempting them from having to do so – an omission that might well have been deliberate.
    Ignatieff: “It is basic to the idea of the nation-state that all citizens should have the same rights, and that these rights should apply across the board. There may be different levels of government, but the constitution works out a division of powers so that there is as little overlap and conflict as possible.” (58)
    We’ve just seen him claim that the notion that “all citizens should have the same rights” would tend to pull the country apart. Now it’s basic to the nation-state.
    As for division of powers, he describes the way it’s supposed to work, but he’s kidding to suggest it’s the case in Canada. We have environment and arts overlap for starters, sometimes housing, and many activists are screaming for a federal education department. Perhaps worst of all, every level of government has some sort of worthless economic development department that hinders the productive private sector. Everyone wants in on the government action because there’s a high government-union salary, plenty of perks, often a lot of visibility, little real accountability – and you get to push people around. Furthermore, the country has endured numerous court cases between different levels of government and/or their agencies, boards and commissions – every one a complete waste of tax dollars, and an indication that the division of powers is a mess – because the politicians are too busy trying to buy votes rather than fix the country’s administration.
    Ignatieff: “The problem with equality of individual rights is that it is simply not enough. It fails to recognize and protect the rights of constituent nations and peoples to protect their distinctive identities.” (65-66)
    “Equal rights” means precisely the equality of individual rights. Collective identities are a matter for sociology, not law.
    Ignatieff: “The claim [French-Canadians and aboriginals] make is that unless they enjoy collective rights over language and land, they cannot securely enjoy their rights as individuals.” (66)
    “Collective rights” is a contradiction in terms. Individual rights are all you get.
    Ignatieff: “Quebec legislation restricts both the use of English in public signage and the free choice of immigrants to choose the language of instruction for their children. To some anglophone Quebecers, these are privileges of a majority that encroach upon the rights of a minority.” (69)
    These are not privileges, they are violations of rights.
    He continues: “Since the passage of Quebec’s Charte de la langue francaise, Bill 101, in 1977, there has been recurring conflict between two incompatible visions of how a political community should run, one putting primacy on individual rights, the other on collective rights.” (69)
    If so, the view based on individual rights must prevail, with “collective rights” discarded – as he himself states on page 24.
    Ignatieff: “In assessing the Quebec case for privileging French, there are two tests of the legitimacy of group rights. First, are they absolutely essential to the survival of the group as such? And second, are these privileges accorded in such a way that they do not violate the rights of individuals, either inside or outside the group? It may be hard for English Canadians to admit this, but Quebec’s language legislation passes both tests.” (71)
    No it doesn’t, it flunks. The right to life is an individual right; a group cannot be said to have a meaningful “right to survive”.
    Ignatieff: “First, given the fact that minority languages are like rare birds – easily rendered extinct – it’s hard to deny the contention that the collective protection of the language employed by 7 million people is essential in a continent of 300 million mostly English-speakers. Such collective protection is important for Quebecers, obviously, but it’s important for English-speakers as well, since we also benefit from a country in which linguistic diversity is cherished.” (71)
    How exactly do the rest of us benefit? Not that it’s a bad thing, but it can be problematic such as in courts or hospitals where translation is required (even more so for languages other than English or French). But each individual still has the right to communicate in his own language.
    Ignatieff: “Second, the francophone majority has respected the rights of minorities in Quebec. It is true that non-English-speaking immigrant minorities must learn the language of the majority, but this is a standard requirement for immigrants everywhere, and they are not prohibited from using their native language in public or from seeking English-language education at the post-secondary level once they have mastered French.” (71)
    Must learn the language? Obviously an immigrant is almost always better off to learn a local language, but is it required? How do you know when they’ve mastered it? I don’t think anybody is “prohibited from using [his] native language in public” in Quebec, but again, everyone has the right to learn and communicate in the language of his choice.
    Bill 101 is not by any means an example of respecting minority (individual) rights. If they can place restrictions on signage because of a spurious “French face of Quebec”, what’s to stop them from putting restrictions on speech based on an equally bogus “French voice of Quebec”?
    Ignatieff: “Group rights have to respect not only the individual rights of other groups – and Quebec language legislation does – but also the individual’s right within the group.” (71-72)
    They don’t do that, and the counter-example is next.
    He continues: “Securing this balance requires political compromise. French-speaking Quebecers do not have the right to send their children to publicly-funded English-language schools. If they wish to do so, they must pay for the education themselves. Without this abridgement of the rights of francophones, and the right of immigrants who wish to educate their children in English, the very capacity of the majority to reproduce the French language would be jeopardized.” (71-72)
    The real argument in all of this is essentially that languages have more rights than people, which is preposterous. Again: the only language right is to use one, not to force others to use one or not to use another. And note the word “abridgement”. A right abridged is not “respected”; here is another contradiction within a single paragraph.
    Further: “Yet the sacrifice of individual rights must secure democratic ratification. And in this case it does. French- and English-speakers accept, with more or less good grace, the constraint on the expansion of English-language education. The balance between group and individual rights has secured a measure of political and social peace in Quebec, and to the degree that the minority values peace, it accepts the compromise.” (71-72)
    “Social peace” is clearly an anti-concept that means being willing to accept intimidation; this has suckered even Supreme Court of Canada justices into writing decisions that violate individual rights. Observe the contradiction with Ignatieff’s words on page 2: “Human rights and constitutionally guaranteed rights are supposed to have an immunity from restriction by the majority.” In the passage quoted here, they can be sacrificed to the majority.
    Ignatieff: “… the rights sought by national groups, such as Quebecois and aboriginal peoples, are demands for political self-government. These appear to be privileges …” (73)
    I think “privilege”, applied to the desire for some form of self-government, is too harsh a word in this context. Democracy is a right, but the exact structure of democratic governance may vary from place to place (compare Canada and the United States, for example).
    Ignatieff: “… once the injustice has been corrected, should the privilege become permanent? The answer depends on the state of the French language in [Quebec’s] case. If its survival appears beyond risk or doubt, some revision of the balance between individual and group rights should be called for. Already the legislation has been changed several times to adjust these competing claims. But whether the restriction of English is justified permanently remains a matter of contention among some English-speaking Quebecers.” (74)
    The status of French in Quebec will never be “beyond risk or doubt”, because we can’t predict what people will be doing 500 years from now. For all we know, people in Canada may be speaking Chinese or Swahili in the distant future; it is not our concern. To repeat the point: languages do not have rights, only individual persons do (the use of the term “privilege” has now shifted to refer to Bill 101 and the like). However, choosing French as the official language of Quebec is not a violation of the rights of anglophones.
    Compare “social peace” and “good grace” in a previous quote with the “matter of contention” noted here plus another earlier quote citing “recurring conflict” since the passage of Bill 101 (page 69). Yet again he contradicts himself.
    Ignatieff: “In the absence of a claim to secession based on clear evidence of oppression, Quebec separatists work up their appeal by alleging that federalism blocks the province’s aspirations to full self-determination. Yet the claim seems specious, since anyone with eyes to see realizes that the Quebec government enjoys full power in education, language policy, employment and immigration. This suggests that the ultimate issue is not the real division of powers within the federal system, but the symbolism of sovereignty. Many Quebecers do not feel they have ever taken full psychological and emotional possession of the federal state, and they look to the creation of their own to feel the final sense of being masters in their own house. ” (133-134)
    If this is the issue, then further constitutional devolution of Canada is a waste of time. However, only individuals can “aspire” to anything, including personal “self-determination”. We are entitled to good government that protects our rights, not necessarily political “self-determination”. “Clear evidence of oppression” exists only in the fantasy-land viewpoint of Quebec‘s extreme left wing.
    Ignatieff: “Quebecers of nationalist persuasion remain convinced that the Charter was intended to abridge their rights as a group. [The Meech Lake deal] would have recognized the distinctiveness of Quebec society and guaranteed its rights to self-government in language and other areas essential to its cultural survival. … In 1992 at Charlottetown, a constitutional deal that sought to protect the group rights of both aboriginal peoples and Quebecers also failed to win support in a nationwide referendum.” (77)
    On the last point, one can only say “thank God”. The people of Canada refused to make a bad situation ten times worse. However, this passage implies that aboriginals and Quebecers have no rights whatsoever today, which is not true.
    Ignatieff: “Quebec is entitled to recognition as a distinct society, and its language laws, immigration statutes and education provisions should be different in order to protect what is different about the province.” (120)
    This is worded awkwardly, but puts the cart before the horse anyway. “What is different about the province” is mainly sociology, not law. The same holds true for the concept of “distinct society”, which therefore has no place in the nation’s statutes. Quebec is entitled to choose French as its official language, and to operate through the provisions of the French Civil Code rather than English common law. The latter is in the nation’s primary legal documents, the former in Quebec’s – both where they belong.

  18. “Voice of the Resistance, an Interview with Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet
    April 19 – “I need to get to work,” says Dr. Óscar Elías Biscet. Are you familiar with him? He is perhaps the foremost Cuban democracy activist, a symbol of the general resistance to the Castro dictatorship. Has he been neglecting his work? Not exactly. For the past twelve years, essentially, he has been in prison, suffering the things that the regime’s prisoners have always suffered. George W. Bush gave him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007. The recipient could not accept it in person, of course. But he has now been released from prison. The day, so long hoped for, by so many of us, was March 11. I spoke to him three weeks after.” …
    http://www.therealcuba.com/ (& scroll down.)

  19. You’re the one whipping the ‘no blood for oil’ shlameel, not me.
    ~libertariansaresmarter
    So you, supposedly a libertarian, are for a foreign military intervention by Canadian forces with Canadian tax monies to help “heroic rebels” in Libya?
    Someone should demand the revocation of your Libertarian card.
    You are one twisted conflicted puppy.

  20. @OZ: no I’ve already stated that I’m not elsewhere. I’m just calling out your historical revisionist BS. You are mendacious.

  21. I’ve already stated that I’m not elsewhere.
    What, elsewhere?
    What are you talking about?

  23. Oz your original comment is amazing
    Your re-writing of history in the Balkans must have consistency.
    You have previously stated that the war in the Balkans was
    1. Due to the Germans desire to finish exterminating the Serbians after the job was left unfinished in WW2
    2. Part of a larger Muslim conspiracy to take over the world.
    3. A NATO US / German oil conspiracy
    I struggle to keep up with your paranoia.
    Which one is it then?

  24. Don’t forget Folks, today is Earth Day.
    Gotta run the Toro two-stroke snowblower dry.

  25. Just curious, does anyone know of a website that keeps up-to-date poll results of all the major polling firms concerning the election?
    On another note, WOW that interview with Iggy by CBC was incredible. I can only imagine what was going through Mansbridge’s head at the end… *my God, I didn’t think it could get any worse than Dion… now I’ll never see another Liberal government in my lifetime.*

  27. The sentence in the first link by EDB covers the justification of presidency of the current occupant of the White House. There is not much else to it.
    “…Obama’s entire campaign is built on class warfare and human envy. ”

  31. rockyt, the long link you provided for the article, “Obama’s deficit plans run into economic reality” didn’t work, so I just tried a part of it, and that did work:
    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_obama;_ylt
    Yes, his audience was asking questions, but the article seemed pretty benign about The Won. I didn’t really get the impression you did, e.g., that “Americans are becoming seriously engaged in Obamer’s double talking on jobs and deficits”. They’re asking questions, but I didn’t see anyone here bashing him over the head—figuratively, of course—which is what he really deserves.

  33. Vίtruvius, thank you very much, indeed! That brought tears to my eyes.
    Our Queen is a great lady, who has served us with amazing grace and dignity for the past 60 years. God bless her, and long may she reign! (Maybe we can skip Charles?)

  34. For Good Friday:
    Here’s a fine performance of part of Thomas Tallis’s “The Lamentations of Jeremiah” by the group, I Fagiolini. Listen to the end, “Ierusalem, Ierusalem, convertere ad Dominum Deum tuum: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, return unto the Lord thy God”. It is so exquisitely beautiful, it’s enough to break one’s heart. (If they sound out of tune, they aren’t. I believe it’s called a “cross relation”: it’s meant to express dissonance.)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjAmQ-F6-jA&feature=related
    Here are some of the incredibly poignant, beautiful, and altogether apt for our times words—“Jerusalem, Zion, Israel” is all of us—of the Prophet Jeremiah, from Lamentations (sung during Holy Week and often on Good Friday), The King James Version:
    Lam.1 [1] How doth the city [Jerusalem] sit solitary, that was full of people how is she become as a widow she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary . . . [5] Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper; for the LORD hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: her children are gone into captivity before the enemy. . . .[22] Let all their wickedness come before thee; and do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions: for my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.
    Lam.2 [1] How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger! . . . [15] All that pass by clap their hands at thee; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth? [16] All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee: they hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up: certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it. . . .
    Lam.3 [1] I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. [2] He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light. . . . [6] He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old. [7] He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy. . . .
    Lam.4 [1] How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed! the stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street. . . . [20] The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the LORD, was taken in their pits, of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen. . .
    Lam.5[1] Remember, O LORD, what is come upon us: consider, and behold our reproach. [2] Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens. [3] We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows . . . [15] The joy of our heart is ceased; our dance is turned into mourning. [16] The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, that we have sinned! [17] For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes are dim. [18] Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate, the foxes walk upon it. [19] Thou, O LORD, remainest for ever; thy throne from generation to generation. [20] Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever, and forsake us so long time? [21] Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old. [22] But thou hast utterly rejected us; thou art very wroth against us.
    Read the rest of this prophetic and exquisite poetry, for our times, as much as then, at:
    http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/text/lamentations.html
    “Kyrie eleison.” “Lord, have mercy upon us.”

  35. PET Cemetery:
    Liberal Count Ignatieff refreshes his family. Why?
    What is this obsession with his family?
    Count’s family* is now in the public space.
    Ignatieff said:
    “I spent my childhood going into the little churches with my Dad on Sunday, and they spoke Russian, so I didn’t understand that, but I knew that this was a big deal for my Dad,” he said.”
    http://www.canada.com/news/decision-canada/Ignatieff+says+promoting+families+stable+government+keys+Liberal+victory/4661384/story.html
    …-
    *More of Liberal Count Ignatieff’s family.
    Liberal Ignatieff’s great-grandfather Count Nicolai Ignatieff on the Jews:
    “If you have lived in South Russia, you know
    what the Jew is,” replied Ignatieff. *’ He is dirty,
    he dresses differently from anybody else, he forms
    a society of his own, and he oppresses the people.”
    The pogroms, murder of the Jews: “the
    frightful excesses”.
    “‘ The reader will remember that the Count’s apologetic state-
    ments about the Jews were shortly afterwards followed by the
    frightful excesses at Balta and other large towns in South
    Russia, which surpassed the previous outrages at Warsaw and
    KiefF, and by the expulsion of Jews from Moscow.”
    “Full text of “The Russian advance towards India. Conversations with Skobeleff, Ignatieff, and other distinguished Russian generals and statesmen, on the Central Asian question”
    http://www.archive.org/stream/russianadvanceto00marv/russianadvanceto00marv_djvu.txt

  36. Yes, thanks, Vίtruvius, for the tribute to Queen Elizabeth II on her birthday yesterday.
    … Thy choicest gifts in store
    on her be pleased to pour,
    Long may she reign.

  37. Steyn describing Obama. What a brilliant writer.
    America, 2011: A man gets driven in a motorcade to sneer at a man who has to drive himself to work. A guy who has never generated a dime of wealth, never had to make payroll, never worked at any job other than his own tireless self-promotion literally cannot comprehend that out there, beyond the far fringes of the motorcade outriders, are people who drive a long distance to jobs whose economic viability is greatly diminished when getting there costs twice as much as the buck-eighty-per-gallon it cost back at the dawn of the Hopeychangey Era.
    So what? Your fault. Should have gone to Columbia and Harvard and become a community organizer

  39. Andrew Klavan On the Culture: “How to Behave During an Islamic Massacre”:
    … Confronting evil can lead to violence. With just a little intellectual dishonesty and some unprincipled sniveling, we can put an end to Islamic slaughters peacefully by eliminating their cause — our freedom.
    http://www.pjtv.com/

  41. This is very telling. The TO Star has an article up about Ignatieff expressing his confidence in Quebec voters. The usual cheerleading bumf that they always do. However,at this time ,there are 23 comments posted,and every one of the comments are along the line of “Iggy’s a fool”. Each and every one.

    If Ignatieff has lost the support of the Star’s readers,he’s done.This would be like the Montreal papers running a story that says they oppose moving the Canadiens to Quebec city,and their readers disagree.

    Say goodnight Mike.

  43. Over at Pajamas Media, April 21, 2011, is an article by Canadian, David Solway, “The Lingo of the Left: Living in an illusory world, the left can maintain its privileged fiction only by adulterating language”.
    This response is exceptional.
    by cfbleachers:
    Indeed, David. Quite wonderful.
    I would like to extend the argument down a slightly different path, or perhaps just create my own tributary here.
    Leftists not only engage in the creation of their own wet paper-mache’ words, phrases and verbal vapors…they create wet paper-mache’ “results” and then work the game backwards to justify the “results”.
    Take competition as an example. Leftists are terrified of natural order, winners/losers and power of incremental distinction grown from having to achieve mastery at ever increasingly harder levels…on a level playing field.
    Leftists instead, wish to pre-ordain the outcome in a rigged “results orgy” and then deconstruct the path by which one “achieves” the phony result. They then give “awards and prizes” for “accomplishment”…which is nothing more than a fool’s trinket. The pomp and circumstance surrounding the “awards ceremony” give off a flavor of rich, top-risen cream. In reality, it’s curdled and sour milk for pretenders, fakes and frauds.
    From the ridiculous to the sublime, leftists have invaded kiddie sports…with the rather inane notion of not keeping score, having everyone play with an announced disregard for actual achievement…and they retard the progress of everyone so as to spare the possible “deselection” of anyone. The “awards” are then given out for “participating” and specifically NOT awarded for “achieving”.
    In the adult version of the mollycoddling, intermeddling, over-mommying “kiddie ball” are ALL of the “awards” ceremonies that have now been cheapened and made into grand farce. The Pulitzer is a leftist back-patting fest, with the elimination of anything to the right of Trotsky.
    The Nobel is a Norwegian piece of worthless tin, given to people with zero accomplishments, outright traitors and frauds, just as long as they march in lockstep with leftist ideology.
    And Hollywood gorges on the tedious, eye-glazing, numbing, droning hours and hours of stuttering bimbos in tight dresses and making the inarticulate into an display piece of cringe-making regularity. Not quite satisfied with just one of these remedial spectacles, the narcissist’s hall of fame produces them as if Henry Ford had made the brain dead an assembly line item.
    Golden Globes, Cannes, the Emmy’s, the Oscars…watching a leftist speak without a teleprompter, a script and an editing team to call “cut” 85844 times…is actually a painful experience.
    Not that I have anything against watching beautiful women, half-clothed, prance around and try to act and sound regal. Eye candy that rots the brain has a place in the entertainment of the masses. It’s when the leftist reportage treats them as if their words are wisdom and should be heeded that we need to snap back to reality. The bimbo and himbo faction are not heed-worthy. We need to separate fantasy from reality.
    And now, we have circled back to the beginning. Being a leftist is the act of intentionally not separating fantasy from reality. It is the creation of a world as you want it to be and refusing to live in the world as it is. Inventing words that fulfill the absence of reality is a by-product of trying to live permanently in a world that does not exist.
    You have to lie to others, because you have to lie to yourself.
    It becomes malignant, when you hate the people who try to force you to live in the real world. Or, have to defend themselves against your infusion of fraud, hoax, distortion…into the rules governing every aspect of their lives. Leftists have intruded into the very essence of living in the world…and snapping us back to reality is jarring to their senses. They react in a fierce and ferocious protection of their fantasy.
    They do not know how to live in the real world. And it terrifies them when anyone or anything confronts them on it. Watch a leftist politician the next time they face an actual objective question…from a journalist not on the fantasy “team”. They recoil in horror and then fall into a rage. Every time.
    Being a leftist is not only a mental disease, it’s a personality disorder. Marxist Schizophrenia combined with malignant narcissism.
    The odd thing is, they make great BS artists. And they can take over an entire country, invade all of its key offices, all of its pop culture, all of its mass media. Making the eradication of the disease and the return to normalcy…nearly impossible.
    David Solway’s response was, “Dear CF/ Your analysis is spot-on./ David”

  44. Yes you are right Lookout.
    254000 responses to the story does indicate a lack of interest by Americans.

  45. Well, rockyt, you do have a point. I thought the article was pretty tame–but maybe that’s just me.
    Cheers!

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