Larry, you give labour a bad name*…

Transcript, CTV-REGINA , Tuesday Apr.8 – SFL UNDER FIRE BY THE PROVINCIAL GOV’T FOR AD TAKING AIM AT THE GOV’T

MANFRED JOEHNCK (Anchor): The Saskatchewan Federation of Labour is under fire by the provincial government.
This is what has the Province all worked up. It is an ad which takes aim at the government and its essential services legislation. The Province believes the ad is intolerant and is frightening especially to women. It refers to the gun sights and the two women within the borders.
The government says the ad is beyond poor taste.
KEN KRAWETZ (Deputy Premier): What I’m saying is that at a time when there was discussion about tolerance, that there was discussion about behaviour of individuals a long time ago and today an ad was printed that some people feel is frightening.
LARRY HUBICH (President, Saskatchewan Federation of Labour): The ad is in response to the government taking aim at workers’ legislation. It was designed by two women actually. So there is no gender issues with it at all. And the Premier I think has some credit in the development of the ad because it was he who said that this government was going to go to war with labour.

I scarcely know where to begin. Though I did call NDP MLA Cam Broten’s office to demand he stand up and denounce this hateful left-wing extremist in the Leg.
Big h/t to John Gormley Live.

A transcript of Gen. David Petraeus’ report to Congress;

Since September, levels of violence and civilian deaths have been reduced substantially, Al Qaeda-Iraq and a number of other extremist elements have been dealt serious blows, the capabilities of Iraqi security force elements have grown, and there has been noteworthy involvement of local Iraqis in local security.
Nonetheless, the situation in certain areas is still unsatisfactory and innumerable challenges remain. Moreover, as events in the past two weeks have reminded us and as I have repeatedly cautioned, the progress made since last spring is fragile and reversible.
Still, security in Iraq is better than it was when Ambassador Crocker and I reported to you last September, and it is significantly better than it was 15 months ago when Iraq was on the brink of civil war and the decision was made to deploy additional forces to Iraq.

That’s going to make some people unhappy. Oh well, there’s that looming recession to help lift their spirits.
Related: Another Michael Totten report from Fallujah – Builders of Nations
Heh– Last night, I had suggested a Petraeus hearings drinking game. The only rule I could think of right away is that you had to down an entire bottle of whiskey immediately if Petraeus used the terms “sniper fire” while being questioned by Clinton.

But for those who keep whining that Saskatchewan’s too flat – be patient.

In a perfect world, this magnificent beast would see more than a blog post.

On the 40th anniversary

…of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., it has been disclosed that 33 members of the Congressional Black Caucus, Democrats all, sent a letter last month to Senate Democratic Harry Reid of Nevada warning him that he had better not give any money to the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, the Hill reported.
Or else.

Following a little dip after supper hour, Ontario power demand rose from 7pm to 9 pm.

(h/t reader Stephen Jacks)
I’m not ashamed to admit it. I’m a little choked up.
(Yes, I noticed the “projection”. No dice, blackout boosters. The science is settled – any detected upward trend is a win in my column.)
Update – They love us in Singapore, too!
Well, those who count do, anyway.
More – Saskatoon Shines!
Plus – The numbers down under;

We watched at least 7 helicopters flying around the inner Brisbane skies. I sent a leftie friend of mine an sms at about 8:15pm asking her if she could hear them too – she was very perplexed as to why they were there until I explained it was the Earth Hour people filming the lights so that they could go home and watch their “success” on their plasma televisions.

Quite right. At 8pm tonight, rational Canadians will become aware of which of their neighbors live on programmed-control thought timers.
And then be aware that there are those who, while admitting their own token effort won’t make any difference, think that an hour of illuminated dissent will result in “driving up your electric bill”. This is less awareness raising than it is an IQ test for the candle powered.
But that’s not all. Be aware when Green Party peepers come prowling your property;

Between 8 and 9 tonight, I’ll be doing what I usually do at that time:I’ll be out with my wife walking our two dogs 5km around our small town.
Tonight, however, I’ll be looking at my neighbours’ windows to see which ones are participating in Earth Hour.

And I’ll be looking out mine to see which ones are skipping national Clean Your Firearms Day.
Related: Take a cue from Google – do nothing.
Earth Hour Offset Project* UPDATE! – SDA gets results!
UPDATE 2! – Be holistic in your efforts to waste. “This earth hour, think inside the box.”

“This war has now lasted longer than World War I, World War II or the Civil War,” – Barack Obama*

Look, you stupid feminazi twits – not everything is about you.
Heh. But it’s still entertaining to watch the churning pink froth….

I’ll state my position as plainly as I can – the CIA could waterboard “Mahmoud” once a week, and western democracies would be nowhere in danger of becoming “no better than the enemy” or “losing our soul” or other such nonsense. Some of the tactics employed during WW2 in defeating the Axis feel rather short of pleasure thresholds, but the victors emerged from the morass as the “greatest generation” nonetheless. (Of course, give it time. Another 20 years and we’ll could well be sending reparations and “never again” mea culpas to the descendants of Hiroshima.)
But then again, relativism was never my strong suit. Try as I might, I cannot place “water up the nose” on the same ethical plane as say, the application of a cordless drill to a prisoner’s temple or forcing him to watch while his children are raped and then slaughtered.
Not so the readers of the Guardian!

What’s interesting to me is how the subject is currently being discussed, or rather reacted against, very often with wholesale fantasy. For every partially serious response to a particular point, there are two, perhaps three, comments that are unhinged and simply perverse, albeit in a broadly similar way. I stopped counting after a dozen different commenters asserted, smugly, that no war against terrorism exists, or that the West shouldn’t have made efforts to defend itself, or that the US is some kind of fascist autocracy, or that Osama bin Laden and his associates weren’t responsible for 9/11, or that the US government killed its own citizens for unspecified reasons, or that Bush and Blair are morally indistinguishable from homicidal jihadists. As a thumbnail sketch of Guardianista opinion, or a large part thereof, these reactions are worth noting.

And then, there’s the whole question of, you know – winning. One of the most maddening arguments utilized by the political left that goes largely unchallenged is the assertion that “you cannot win a war against an insurgency”.
Well, speaking as a lowly citizen, may I make a suggestion? Could we please get busy and come up with a way to defeat insurgencies, because if we don’t, western civilization as we know it is doomed.

“Dear Mahmoud. Sorry about that dunking thing a while back. We’ve voted those dreadful people out and replaced them with Enlightened Diplomats. Here’s the thing – you and I both know we are incapable of defeating an enemy who wears no uniform, obeys no rules of combat, engages in terrorism and random attacks on civilians, but this is of little concern because we are confident that you will never bring those tactics to our soil.”

Perhaps that’s the true legacy of Vietnam and to an extent, WW2 – the notion that one can lose a war and still go home again. After all, Germany, Italy, and Japan still claim spots on the map. In retrospect, that may have been a mistake on our part.

“But why does [Minnesota Democrat] Ellison think calling someone a Muslim is a “smear”?”

While self-aggrandizing “swastika hunters” prowl the washrooms of Ontario hockey arenas searching for Bic wielding 10 year olds, the Canadian leftosphere marches on unopposed…

… classic antisemitic themes such as the blood libel are found in Oxfam’s poster in 2002 of the “Israeli orange”, which promoted boycotting of Israeli products, and of Israel in general. (Following a wide protest, this poster was withdrawn.)

As I’ve said in the past – if it’s anti-Semitism you’re looking for, scratch a “progressive”.

we shall surrender on the seas and oceans,
we shall surrender with growing confidence and growing weakness in the air, we shall
surrender our Island, whatever the cost may be,
we shall surrender on the beaches,
we shall surrender on the landing grounds,
we shall surrender in the fields and in the streets,
we shall surrender in the hills;
we shall always surrender,

(source)

And people scoffed when Ramesh Ponnuru * called them the party of death;

The Bush-assassination fantasies are concocted by his political opponents and at least arise from his acts — invading the world; slaughtering 14 million Iraqi civilians or whatever it’s up to by now; shredding the constitution. By contrast, the Obama-assassination porn is written by his worshippers and testifies to one of the most palpable features of the senator’s campaign — its faintly ersatz quality, its determination to appropriate Camelot and every other mythic narrative.

And it’s not just an American phenomenon.
This macabre longing for martyrdom in some quarters may be less “assassination porn” than it is political pragmatism – a subconscious recognition that the tsunami of emotion propelling the refreshingly achievement-free candidate of hope is likely to crash unhappily upon Reality Rock the first time he’s faced with a difficult foreign policy decision.
Better a dream denied than a dream deflated. After all, it’s a recipe that stood the test of time for an abbreviated Kennedy presidency that was, likewise, long on promise and short on delivery. Perhaps that’s where they keep finding the similarities.

I came up with the ultimate plan for world peace.
It’s a such an astoundingly simple plan, actually, I can’t believe no one has thought of it before. (Well, perhaps Victoria did.)
Make everyone speak English – and only English.
Because really, how long has it been since two English speaking nations went to war?
Exactly.
From the comments, DrD;

It’s an interesting discussion. The specific issue of linguistics is a subset of the larger issue of “cultural diversity”. I hear touted frequently the advantages of cultural diversity, but rarely any concrete example of the supposed advantage beyond the “more pavillions at folkfest” boilerplate. While I can imagine off hand possible advantages of having linguistic diversity within Canada — facilitation of trade links with the Orient for instance, the numbers of individuals who would require such skills for the advantage to accrue to the larger population as a portion of that larger population is miniscule. Even the supposed necessity to preserve language for the preservation of cultural gems is dubious. For example, while the latin dance scene is alive and well in Calgary, tango in particular, very few of the participants speak more than a smattering of Spanish, and the leading instructor is Japanese. Since the aim of language is communication, efforts by government to artificially preserve languages which would otherwise disappear in the larger linguistic sea in which they exist are effectively efforts to thwart communication and preserve divisions which would otherwise be more likely to disappear. Unscrupulous politicians may exploit such divisions to gain political advantage, but this does not equal an overall gain for the population as a whole. While I do not advocate efforts to deliberately suppress linguistic diversity, neither do I see any reason for taxpayers to fund efforts to preserve linguistic diversity in the absence of any observable advantage for those taxpayers.

In my experience, the argument about facilitating trade through language acquisition is nonsense. I’ve exported show dogs to buyers in Denmark, Singapore, China, Brazil, and Quebec. The inquiries I’ve received over the past few years, and did not follow up on, have come from Korea, the Philippines, Mexico, Spain, Italy, etc. Those who could not speak English used the services of a translator[1] – at their expense.
Which makes complete sense, when you think about it. When one’s market extends from Asia to Europe to South Africa on any given day, which language do you propose one learn? It’s much easier to find a translator and pay them to do the job.
[1] Footnote:
A typical call goes something like this…
Translator: Ms. Catherine, I have a call from Mr. David from Brasil. Can you hold on?
Me: Sure, no problem.
Translator: Blehdyblah deblahdeblah.
Mr. David: Blehdyblahdeblahdebla hblehdyblah Ms. Catherine deblahdeblah, blehdyblahdeblah deblahblehdyblahde blah deblah blehdyblahblahblahblah. Deblah dedede Sharky blah blahdeblahdeblah. Blehdyblahdeblahdeblah blehdyblah deblah blahdeblah blehdy. Blehdy blahdeblahdeblade blah blehdy deblah. Blehdyblahdeblahdebla hblehdyblah blahdeblahdeblah. Blehdyblahdeblahdebla hblehdyblahdeblah blahdeblah blahde blah blah blah deblah. Deblah blehdy blahblahblahblah. Deblah dedede Sharky blah blahdeblahdeblah. Blehdyblah deblahdebla hblehdyblahdeblah blahdeblah blehdy. Blehdy blahdeblahdeblade blah blehdy deblah. Blehdyblah deblahdeblah blehdyblah blahdeblahdeblah. Bleh dyblahdeblahdebla hblehdyblahdeblah blahdeblah Blahdeblah deblah deblah. Blahdeblah.
Translator: OK. Thank you. Ms. Catherine?
Me: Yes?
Translator: Mr. David wants to know – is your dog Sharky for sale?

From: Flexner, Allison
Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2008 7:46 AM
To: *CNN Superdesk (TBS)
Cc: Neill, Morgan; Darlington, Shasta
Subject: Castro guidance
Some points on Castro – for adding to our anchor reads/reporting:
* Please say in our reporting that Castro stepped down in a letter he wrote to Granma (the communist party daily), as opposed to in a letter attributed to Fidel Castro. We have no reason to doubt he wrote his resignation letter, he has penned numerous articles over the past year and a half.
* Please note Fidel did bring social reforms to Cuba – namely free education and universal health care, and racial integration. in addition to being criticized for oppressing human rights and freedom of speech.
* Also the Cuban government blames a lot of Cuba’s economic problems on the US embargo, and while that has caused some difficulties, (far less so than the collapse of the Soviet Union) the bulk of Cuba’s economic problems are due to Cuba’s failed economic polices. Some analysts would say the US embargo was a benefit to Castro politically – something to blame problems on, by what the Cubans call “the imperialist,” meddling in their affairs.
* While despised by some, he is seen as a revolutionary hero, especially with leftist in Latin America, for standing up to the United States.
Any questions, please call the international desk.
Allison

(For those who missed it – 537 days have elapsed since bionic Adidas man’s last exhalation.)
More turd-polishing…

h/t to reader “wnc” – “CTV leads with the fact (see website) that Castro outlasted nine US presidents. Never mind term limits, lack of democracy etc. Expect more hagiography over the next few days. Stay tuned for a CBC/CTV special on Trudeau’s ‘historic’ visit to Cuba.”
Perhaps Sasha can narrarate.

His intellect is one of the most broad and complete that can be found. He is an expert on genetics, on automobile combustion engines, on stock markets. On everything.
Combined with a Herculean physique and extraordinary personal courage, this monumental intellect makes Fidel the giant that he is.

(I advise you gird yourself with a shot of gravol before continuing with that link.)

And give Americans a candidate everyone can vote for?

horribly wrong …. Should Dr. Henry Morgentaler be awarded the Order of Canada?
Yes – 13% 5109 votes
No – 87% 33841 votes
Or did it? It shouldn’t come as a surprise that even pro-choicers would see the “ick” factor in this. But what of the folks who hand out the Orders?

Explained;

… Modern Christianity, however, is a far different creature from modern Islam. Every religion is, to a greater or lesser extent, a balance between reason and faith in its teachings and day to day practices. The great fault of modern Islam is not its having missed the sexual or industrial revolutions, but having missed the epistemological revolution of the thirteenth century. The Islamic world seems medieval in its attitudes and outlook because it is medieval, or more accurately early medieval, in its thinking.
[…]
What separates the citizen of a liberal democracy and his medieval ancestor, and the Cario slum dweller, is how they go about solving the bigger problems of life. How do I decide something is true in ethics, politics or science? The dictum of the Thomists was “Nihil est in intellectu quod non sit prius in sensu.” (Nothing is in the intellect that was not first in the senses). Evidence and rational thought are the ideal of modern life, even of post modern life. It is an ideal we fall short of but the alternative is the life of the modern medievalists. The Islamists and so many of the actual “moderate” Muslims – moderate in the sense they occupy the intellectual middle ground between liberal democracy and theocracy – act upon faith. What that means in practice is not living according to the teachings of an ancient holy book, but the interpretations of the holy book.
If one’s interpretations are based on reason, on an attempt to rationally analyze the text and compare and contrast with the evidence of one’s senses, one admits that religious teachings are a matter of debate and even disagreement. If one’s interpretations are based solely on faith, not merely faith in accepting a certain set of assumptions as true, but faith in applying those principles as well, how does one debate with others? I say this is the truth. Why? Because it is. What are your reasons? There are not reasons, only faith. The only way to resolve the conflict is to follow or fight. For a modern Christian faith extends as far as accepting certain assumptions as true without evidence, their application and mitigation with empirical evidence is done – or at least striven to be done – by reason.

It’s sympatico.
It’s not by accident that so much of what is offered as debate by the modern left on the critical issues facing our times sounds less like reasoned argument than it does “Silence infidel!“
(I have more to say about this here)

Total votes:
Clinton 8,914.030
Obama winning 8,392,514
Total Delegates!
Obama 1,806
Clinton 1,789
This is undemocratic! I demand a recount!

I’d like to thank you.
Generally speaking, I’m a bit of a stickler about leaders of political parties having achieved some sort of electoral legitimacy before expecting their public policy views to be widely reported…

Ms. Woodfield, who has unsuccessfully run for office provincially and municipally, said the federal Greens disrespected Canada’s troops when Ms. May said Tuesday that “the (report’s) recommendation of more ISAF forces from a Christian/Crusader heritage will continue to fuel an insurgency that has been framed as a jihad. This, in turn, may feed the recruitment of suicide bombers and other insurgents.”
The “Christian/Crusader” reference prompted the federal Conservatives to fire off a release condemning the Greens. Ms. May’s party shot back with a release Wednesday criticizing the Tories for spinning the Greens’ message to suit their own agenda.
Ms. Woodfield, mother of Pte. Braun Scott Woodfield, 24, who died in Afghanistan in 2005, said the initial release from the Greens was offensive.
“I fear that with the words (Ms. May) used, that she’s painted a target on the back of every uniformed member of NATO that’s over” in Afghanistan.

But given her high profile alliance with Stephane Dion, all I can say about the press’s eager coverage of the dizzy Lizzy is “faster, please!”