22 Replies to “Reader Tips”

  1. Age of default
    The American “debt ceiling” has, like everything else, a history. And like so much else in what I persistently call Nanny Statecraft, it goes back to the First World War. Once upon a time, the U.S. Congress had to authorize every single bond issue. That meant finding a political justification, which slowed the borrowing down.
    http://davidwarrenonline.com/

  3. When my nephew was 4 years old, he’d burst into tears every time London headed down the road, at the end of the show. No home! No family!
    Rock 105 in Medicine Hat plays this song every friday at 7:30 AM. It’s the signal of the end of the work week for traveling oilfield crews. Not that many of them get weekends off.

  5. Now that I think on it, I believe The Littlest Hobo was wandering the grounds of the Oxford County Kennel Club dog show held here in Woodstock Ontario in early July!
    I could be mistaken , though.

  7. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2020548/Muslim-teenagers-sprayed-burka-scantily-clad-models-offended-religion.html
    Two Muslim teenagers have admitted defacing advertising hoardings featuring scantily-clad models and painting a ‘burka’ over them because they offended their religious views.
    Mohammed Hasnath and Muhammed Tahir, both 18, used black paint to cover up the picture of a female model on a hoarding advertising Lynx deodorant.
    The duo proceeded to paint over the faces on several other advertisements around London’s East End, claiming it was a ‘sin’ for them to be uncovered.

  8. My attitude toward certain leaders and pundits often turns on a dime. For Condi Rice (the intelligent moron and near-concert pianist) it was her celebration of Mahmoud Abbas as the Martin Luther King of the Palestinian Arabs, bolstered in a recent interview in which she trotted out (still after all these years!) the tired talking point about Saddam paying $25,000 to the families of Palestinian Arab suicide bombers.
    Chump change: ‘cos the US was a a major supporter of jihad terror under the Bush regime and continues to be under the Obama regime. Obama is at least consistent, having such good buddies as Prof. Kahlidi (sp?) of Columbia.
    Palestinian Authority Funding and Glorification of Terrorists.
    It is because of this kind of suicidal idiocy that I finally recanted on the Iraq and A’stan wars.

  9. I seem to remember a slightly different “Littlest Hobo” theme song. Were there two? At any event, “Littlest Hobo” and “Skippy the Bush Kangaroo” were two of my must-see TV shows when I was a kid.
    Nowadays, after a particularly intense night on call, in all likelihood they’d once again be appropriate viewing fare for my shell-shocked brain.

  11. H/T Bleeding hearts of the left-liberal religion.
    “*Killing With Kindness”
    “**The dream was to “restore a town, transform a nation.””
    …-
    “**Charity”
    “Swaziland project collapses in clash between Canadian ambitions and local priorities”
    “Volker Wagner wanted to do more than donate the money he made from his successful printing business. Driven by his evangelical Christian faith, the Vancouver entrepreneur went far beyond typical charity. With partners, donors and his own cash, he raised $1-million to buy a dilapidated, remote old mining town in Swaziland.”
    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/swaziland-project-collapses-in-clash-between-canadian-ambitions-and-local-priorities/article2115074/
    …-
    “*Killing With Kindness”
    “David Stove (1927-1994) was a philosopher and polemicist who taught at the University of Sydney for many years. A pessimist, a conservative, and a common-sense reductionist in the grand Anglo-Saxon tradition, Stove deployed a keen wit and an imaginative style against a wide range of modern shibboleths. His writings were little known outside his own country until after his death, when they were championed by Roger Kimball, then editor of The New Criterion and now also publisher of Encounter Books.
    What’s Wrong With Benevolence is an extended essay—107 pages—that Stove wrote between February and October 1989, as the Soviet Union’s grip on its European satrapies was being broken. Francis Fukuyama was writing the first iteration of his essay “The End of History?”—which still had the question mark in its title—at precisely the same time. Neither essay shows any awareness of the other, and they could hardly be more different in tone or approach. While Fukuyama saw Marxist-Leninist despotism as a detour in an upward evolutionary development of human society, for Stove it was the political expression of a fundamental human weakness that came to light as the ideals of the 18th-century Enlightenment became dominant. At the heart of that weakness, says Stove, is a dream of universal benevolence.
    Under normal circumstances the power of human affections weakens with distance, like the force of gravity. Our love is strongest for our own kin and those we know well. For our extended family and remoter acquaintances we feel less; and thence outward to the occasional and attenuated bonds of club and tribe, ethny and nation, and the “fictive kinships” of religion and ideology.
    This default configuration can be disturbed by family strife, personal betrayals, civil or religious conflict, and international crises. It can even be reversed: a man dies in the trenches for his country or faith, leaving his wife and children without support. We nonetheless feel the default diminishing-with-distance configuration to be the normal and natural one and look on deviations from it as regrettable.
    But we are also inclined to think that our affections might, or ought, at their broadest but weakest, encompass our entire species in universal benevolence. Why else do people give to disaster relief in remote lands?”
    http://www.amconmag.com/blog/killing-with-kindness/

  14. Tranna cops shoot and kill a gunman who refused to cooperate with them after shooting into a crowd at the annual Caribbean Carnival ( formerly Caribana-although I have another name for it).
    Two bystanders injured. One critical.
    Quelle surprise!!!

  15. Remove CBC from our tax dollars.
    Fire. Them. All.
    “CBC News’ practice is not to name suspects who have not been charged with offences, and therefore is not publishing the full list of names and photos at this time.”
    …-
    “War-crimes suspect removed from Canada”
    “The Canada Border Services Agency has announced a war-crimes suspect taken into custody this week has been removed from the country.
    Manuel de la Torre Herrera, 58, was taken into custody on Monday in Toronto. He came to Canada in 2000 from Peru and has been subject to a removal order since 2004, the federal government said.
    Prompted by a media report, the federal government launched a website last Thursday with the names, birthdates and photographs of 30 individuals it identified as suspects in war crimes and crimes against humanity. The government appealed for any information that could lead to their whereabouts.
    “Five of the individuals listed have since been taken into CBSA custody.”
    http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/07/31/war-crimes-suspect-removal.html

  16. CTV,on their newsnet program hosted by the almond eyed Jacqueline Mizralek(?) has been informing viewers that the CBSA posting of the war criminals has resulted in over 115 tips.
    I doubt that she writes her script for the broadcast,but this has been aired every hour since 9 a.m.,someone involved may be writng their own. Perhaos they should be involved in other programs,something that requires steps.

  17. O’bustard. O’narcissist*.
    ““Today we, and everyone we have worked to speak for and fight for, were thrown under the bus,” Rep. Raul Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat”.
    “This is his sole legacy: a massive post-traumatic stress disorder.”
    …-
    “Obama’s base: We’ve been “thrown under the bus””
    “Even without a debt-limit deal completed, liberal lawmakers and activist groups are already lining up against the outlines of the agreement, saying President Obama and congressional Democrats are risking Social Security while squandering a chance to force tax increases.
    “Today we, and everyone we have worked to speak for and fight for, were thrown under the bus,” Rep. Raul Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat who is co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said Sunday as top senators began to describe the deal they are trying to strike with Mr. Obama.
    Attention throughout the debt debate has been showered on tea party-powered Republicans, while liberal lawmakers think they’ve been ill-represented in the negotiations.
    And this weekend that frustration boiled over.
    In the House, a handful of liberal members voted against Democrats’ plan, as did Sen. Bernard Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats and who had harsh words for the trajectory of discussions over the last few months.
    Mr. Sanders, a self-identified socialist, complained that in that bill, “not one penny of revenue” would be raised. Though Mr. Obama and House Speaker John A. Boehner flirted with possible tax increases in earlier talks, those have not been part of the bills on the House and Senate floors during the last two weeks, and senators said they are not part of the outlines of the final deal taking shape.
    (Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com …”
    http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2756702/posts
    …-
    *O’narcissist. O’bustard.
    “The “small people”, the “rank and file”, the “loyal soldiers” of the narcissist – his flock, his nation, his employees – they pay the price. The disillusionment and disenchantment are agonizing. The process of reconstruction, of rising from the ashes, of overcoming the trauma of having been deceived, exploited and manipulated – is drawn-out. It is difficult to trust again, to have faith, to love, to be led, to collaborate. Feelings of shame and guilt engulf the erstwhile followers of the narcissist. This is his sole legacy: a massive post-traumatic stress disorder.”
    “Barack Obama – Narcissist or Merely Narcissistic?
    Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. – 8/13/2008”
    http://www.globalpolitician.com/25109-barack-obama-elections

  18. WRT macd’s tip,I’m hoping for a news bite that shows a citizen saying “that’s not a pony,that’s a parasite”,and a greying Obama character saying,”you didn’t read the fine print”.

  19. more liebral logic…raise taxes and try to get the money for yourself…any way you can.
    The U.S. Secret Service does more than protect Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. — the agency also pays him rent.
    Since April, Mr. Biden has collected more than $13,000 from the agency charged with protecting him and his family, for use of a rental cottage adjacent to the waterfront home he owns in a Wilmington, Del., neighborhood.
    Mr. Biden, listed not as vice president in federal purchasing documents but as “vendor,” is eligible for up to $66,000 by the time the government contract expires in the fall of 2013, the records show.
    Officials say the arrangement came about when a previous tenant moved out of the cottage and the Secret Service moved in.
    Edwin M. Donovan, special agent in charge at the Secret Service’s Office of Government and Public Affairs in Washington, said the agency pays $2,200 in rent per-month, the same amount a previous tenant had paid before moving out.
    **FILE** Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.**FILE** Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
    He said the close location provides a level of security for the Biden family the agency might not have had otherwise. Asked if the Secret Service typically pays rent to the people it protects, he said, “It’s a rental property so we pay rent there.”
    Taxpayer watchdogs say the Secret Service should do everything it can to protect Mr. Biden, but they wonder whether he should be collecting rent from the agency while it’s doing its job.
    “He should be afforded every single protection available to him and his family, as should every vice president and president,” said Leslie Paige, spokeswoman for the Washington-based Citizens Against Government Waste.
    “But this arrangement seems bizarre to me,” she added. “You’d think the vice president, who shepherded the deficit committee, would think twice about charging the Secret Service rent. Why would he need the money? I don’t get it.”
    According to Mr. Biden’s office, the vice president’s mother lived in the cottage until she died in January 2010. At that time, the Secret Service had been renting properties in the Wilmington area for agents who were providing a protective presence at Mr. Biden’s personal residence.
    Mr. Biden later asked the Secret Service if the agency wanted to rent the cottage property, but the Secret Service declined and Mr. Biden rented it instead to a private tenant, according to the vice president’s office. But almost a year later, when that tenant moved out, the Secret Service decided to rent the cottage and approached Mr. Biden.
    “The cottage was an existing rental property at the time the Secret Service signed its lease,” said Kendra Barkoff, a spokeswoman for Mr. Biden.
    Last year, Mr. Biden and his wife, Jill, reported earning $379,178, including $11,000 in income from the cottage, according to the Bidens’ tax return. The Bidens did not list any rental income for 2009.
    The Secret Service was the contracting agency on the two purchase orders so far that have paid Mr. Biden $13,200 combined for use of his cottage.
    The first purchase order to Mr. Biden for $2,200 was signed April 1, 2011, and the second for $11,000 was signed June 2. The records both list Mr. Biden by name as the vendor under a section of the purchase order called “contractor information.” The purchase order describes Mr. Biden as a sole proprietor with no employees and no annual revenue.
    The Washington Times inquired about the rental arrangement after Mr. Biden’s name appeared as a vendor in federal spending records. As the vendor on a fixed-price contract, Mr. Biden technically now is a federal contractor.
    He’s been outspoken in calling for greater accountability in federal contracts. When Mr. Biden and President Obama launched the “Campaign to Cut Waste” last month, Mr. Biden said, “The President and I are committed to changing the way government works and we are stepping up the hunt for misspent dollars.”
    During the presidential transition, Mr. Biden and Mr. Obama pledged to end the abuse of no-bid contracting and require competitive bidding on nearly all contract orders for more than $25,000 across the federal government.
    Though the overall rental contract has a total value of up to $66,000, the agreement was approved through simplified acquisition procedures that do not require bidding.
    “To an outside observer who pays the taxes that help fund protective services, this might seem like an odd arrangement, but apparently there’s some law or administrative procedure that facilitates it,” said Pete Sepp, vice president of the National Taxpayers Union in Alexandria, which monitors federal spending.
    Mr. Sepp also had a thought on what Mr. Biden could do with the rent money he collects from the Secret Service: “Every elected official can do the same thing average Americans can, which is to write a check to the Bureau of the Public Debt to bring down the national debt.”

  20. cretien’s subs…can’t even sink.
    and howcumizzit the media doesn’t call them ‘cretien’s subs’ when you know bloody well that if Harper had been in office they’d have been called ‘Harper’s subs’ and be on the front page every other day ??
    Compromise in rust treatment on navy submarine results in depth restriction
    By: Michael Tutton, The Canadian Press
    Posted: 07/31/2011 10:01 AM
    HMCS Windsor will be restricted in its ability to dive deep beneath the seas because of rust, according to a document obtained by The Canadian Press. People walk and cycle along a dock as HMCS Windsor prepares to dock in Halifax on Thursday, Dec. 21, 2006. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan
    HALIFAX – One of the Canadian navy’s four Victoria-class submarines will be restricted in its ability to dive deep beneath the seas because of rust, according to a document obtained by The Canadian Press.
    A Feb. 9, 2010, briefing note prepared by Lt.-Cmdr. Helga Budden recommends repairing seven areas of general rust and three regions of localized pitting rust on HMCS Windsor.
    Budden recommends the repair be carried out through a “protect and monitor” option which calls for grinding away and priming the corroded areas, with regular checks of those areas to be conducted once the submarine is operational.
    But her note says that option would result in a new depth limitation for the submarine.
    “Materiel safety of the submarine would be maintained through a depth limitation caveat on the Windsor’s submarine safety document register,” says the note, obtained under federal access-to-information legislation.
    The note was based on research done by defence research scientists in Halifax.
    Budden, an officer with the submarine naval architecture division of the navy, says in the note that the military considered repairs involving welding fresh metal onto the vessel’s hull, a process called “plate replacement.”
    That option would involve “no depth limitation,” the briefing note says.
    But Budden rejects that repair method, saying it would cost between $3 million to $5 million and take a year to do.
    Another method labelled as “repair all” was rejected too, as concerns were flagged about the availability of welders, the note said. It would also take one year to do and cost $1 million.
    An option to repair the pitted area was also nixed.
    “Given the emphasis on not delaying (HMCS Windsor) … by the project manager, protecting and monitoring the known corrosion defects is the only option left,” Budden wrote.
    Her note was prepared for Maritime Equipment Project Management, the branch of the navy that oversees its equipment.
    Blaine Duffley, director of Maritime Equipment Project Management for submarines, confirmed in an interview that the navy chose to proceed with the “protect and monitor” option.
    When asked if a depth limit had been imposed, Duffley responded, “Unfortunately, I’m not at liberty to say.”
    “The operating parameters of submarines are obviously a classified issue. So I can’t speak to what the actual operating level of the submarine would be,” he said.
    “What I can say is the submarine is safe to perform all expected operations during her operational period until her next extended docking work period.”
    An extended docking work period is the term the navy uses to describe the extensive overhauls the four submarines must periodically undergo. Duffley said he expected HMCS Windsor would be ready to undock in late 2011, more than two years later than originally expected.
    He said it could be approximately six years before it would be scheduled for another major overhaul.
    HMCS Windsor is the newest of the four Victoria-class submarines Canada purchased from the British. Duffley said the Windsor had the least use prior to being mothballed by the British navy.
    The Halifax-based submarine was brought to Nova Scotia on Oct. 19, 2001. Since then, it has operated at sea for just 332 days partly due to overhauls and repairs.
    The briefing note also says while, “repairs to the pressure hull are highly desirable from a hull husbandry point of view, they are not absolutely necessary.”
    Duffley said that doesn’t mean it must be done.
    “That’s more from the perspective that in an ideal world you want the hull of your submarine or the body work in your car to be perfect all the time,” he said.
    “So perfection is the ideal, but rarely do you achieve that.”
    He also said the decision to “protect and monitor” the hull won’t shorten its lifespan.
    David Zimmerman, a professor of history at the University of Victoria, said the navy is extremely cautious with any rust due to the pressures the hull repeatedly undergoes as it dives and surfaces.
    The author and expert on military history said it’s regrettable that a depth limitation would be considered necessary.
    “It’s unfortunate,” he said. “It does obviously impact on the operation of the submarine in times of war or in terms of operational readiness that they can’t use the submarine to its full potential in training missions.”
    The diesel-powered submarines are highly valued by navies within NATO because they can be used to train naval vessels in submarine detection, he added.
    Still, Zimmerman said the corrosion is another example of the compromises Canada made when it purchased the second-hand submarines rather than buying or building new submarines.
    “It was a terrible trade-off I think,” he said.
    “It was part and parcel of a government that at the time wasn’t willing to spend the money to acquire new submarines and state-of-the-art submarines.”
    The British Royal Navy launched the submarines in the late 1980s and early 1990s before taking them out of service in 1994.
    Canada purchased four of them for about $890 million in 1998.
    HMCS Chicoutimi caught fire in 2004 that killed one sailor during the submarine’s maiden voyage in the North Atlantic. It is still in dry dock undergoing an overhaul.

  22. You know, I might respect the CBC if they renamed George Stephanopolous’s show “The Littlest Boho”…

Proudly powered by WordPress & Skyrocket Themes

MENU

Navigation