Vancouver political insider Alex Tsakumis has published a most stunning indictment in & around the recent riots. Here are some snippets:

Despite the warnings, the brooding, simmering cauldron of booze, drugs and anarchy, Penny Ballem and Gregor Robertson wouldn’t budge. They were joined by the Premier who, as only she can, exclaimed, “It’ll be GREAT! Imagine when we win it all!” Notice the word ‘we’ and the wholly transparent efforts to identify with the winning team–well, what should have been the winning team. So desperate was Clark to hitch her wagon to the Canucks’ championship destiny (a rapidly fizzled proposition) that her every public speaking engagement of late was on the Canucks or ended with some typically dim-witted Clark reference to the Cup. Her press scrums ended with increasing references to the same thing. It was the ‘prom queen’ routine–all heels and hypocrisy.

In Vancouver, the police begged for help and were ignored by the pot-smoking, nirvana-loving, socks and sandals set running the city. It’s beyond pathetic.

Then there’s the Mayor. No one contributed to the potential for such a disaster and eye sore than Gregor Robertson. His insistence that public disobedience and intoxication was somehow a sign of a “fun city” have the anarchists and hooligans a platform on which to perform. He is singularly reposnisble for not reigning in Dr. Bedlam and firing her and for not coming clean on the plain and simple fact: He screwed up. Robertson has spent three years turning Vancouver into a commune; a public toilet and ashtray. His policies of chicken coops and unnecessary bike lanes have siphoned tens of millions of dollars which should have gone towards needs like policing.

One wonders if his parents are just as proud as he is?!

Incidentally, for those on Facebook, take a look at this group. All sorts of twits are bragging about the crimes they committed last night. I think the collective IQ of Vancouver is being exposed as much, much lower than average.

Full story

Remember, this is from the CBC’s senior business correspondent for The National and co-host of the Lang & O’Leary Exchange:

I broke the rules to spend beyond my means

…
I was posted to New York at the age of 28 as a business journalist, and intended to live within the somewhat modest means of a newspaper correspondent. And I stuck to my guns, for at least six months. Then I abandoned my guns, hopped over the wall into no man’s land, went AWOL. And in retrospect I’m glad I did, because the investment in my career and the experiences were worth more than the thousands of dollars I figure it cost me…
My new friends liked to dine out (most people I knew in New York used their oven as additional storage space) and pretty soon we were traveling too. Italy, Spain, Italy, the Hamptons, Italy. We travelled together, and an Italian villa back then was a steal — I was practically saving money by going.
Within a few years, I was rich in experience, a billionaire in sights and sounds, a queen of couture. And tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt. The lowest moment, financially speaking, was when I cashed in my RRSP — paid a huge chunk of tax on it, lost the compounding potential, and used the money to pay off a credit card. Or most of it…
Was it a mistake? On a straight math basis yes. It was foolish. But would I do the same thing over again? In a New York minute…

Entitled to her…

A brilliant follow-up to yesterday’s well discussed posting here on SDA was just published by Kelly McParland in the National Post. He so beautifully destroys the entitlement mentality, selfishness, totalitarian mindset, and hypocrisy that seems ever present in Radical Leftists these days.
Here’s a sampling of what should be a Must Read column for all Canadians who don’t fully understand the concept of democracy:

Ms. DePape is a recent graduate of the University of Ottawa, that bastion of free speech, where they shout down speakers who hold views they don’t like. She took classes in “international development and globalization,” where they teach you about the West’s cruel failure to adequately support less fortunate nations while plotting ways to exploit their labour. Fair trade coffee is free at the door.
They must not have reached the part of the course where they learn about democracy. Or perhaps Ms DePape missed that day, skipping classes to strap herself to the stack of a coal-fired power plant. Democracy is a system in which people get together and vote on who they wish to elect as a government. The party with the most votes wins. Recently, Canada had an election, in which almost 15 million votes were cast for 19 parties, some of which even held views similar to Ms. De Pape’s. The Conservative party won by quite a wide margin. The NDP, a party which considers itself “progressive,” also did quite well.

This afternoon Roy Green spoke with McParland about his column. You can listen to it here.

In an unprecedented move, a 21 year-old over-indulged narcissist of the Far Left (is that redundant?) was fired from her job as a Parliamentary page on Friday. This totalitarian thug/nitwit, who completely rejected the Democratic Will of the Canadian people, tried to spin her selfish little actions as “The Canadian version of an Arab spring”.
Undoubtedly all of her life her parents told her how “special” she was. What would be really special is if her actions made her unemployable for at least the next few decades. But undoubtedly she’ll get a job with some Radical Left activist group . . . funded directly or indirectly by your tax dollars. Ain’t our modern society with entitlements but no responsibility just grand?!
Update: Further info here, including a job offer from PSAC.
Open Question: Is it possible for the federal government to change the law, forbidding unions to exist amongst government employees on the grounds that their existence are an antithesis to civil democracy and good governance?
Update 2: A poll on the matter! (h/t maz2)

Ezra Levant takes his show to an entirely new level, competing with the theatrics of Rick Mercer:

Video kindly uploaded by Matt from Mississauga

Sometimes I feel guilty about the crushing debt our generation is passing on to the next. Then I read news items like this;

Police said the gang members are part of a group of more than 1,000 youths who have used social media sites like Facebook to plan unruly gatherings on the beach on three of the past four nights.

Whatever!

Robert J. Samuelson;

“A year after rescuing Greece from default, Europe is staring into the abyss. The bailout has proved insufficient. Greece needs more money, and it can’t borrow from private markets where it faces interest rates as high as 25%.”

But not an abyss abyss.

“Already, unemployment is 14.1% in Greece, 14.7% in Ireland, 11.1% in Portugal and 20.7% in Spain. What are the limits of austerity? Steep spending cuts and tax increases do curb budget deficits; but they also create deep recessions, lowering tax revenues and offsetting some of the deficit improvement.”

Mere sentences later, he actually uses the word “mirage” in a different context. Missed it by that much!
Related.

On the heels of the SDA discussion about whether college/university was a good investment, comes this new piece by Time magazine. Here’s a synopsis:

A new report shows some undergraduate degrees pay off more than others — literally. Using data from the U.S. Census, the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce’s “What’s It Worth: The Economic Value of College Majors” report, issued May 24, looked at 171 different majors and found that the difference in earning potential between one field of study and another can be more than 300%. TIME took a look at the 10 highest- and the 10 lowest-earning majors

On a personal note, may I admit that I smiled broadly when I saw that Mining and Mineral Engineering was in the top ten for Best Majors. For when I graduated as a mining engineer in the late 80’s I’ll never forget how all the “experts” told me what a dumb decision it was to be getting involved in a “sunset industry”. I guess they forgot about what happens the morning after the sun sets!

Yesterday Sun News TV’s Brian Lilley interviewed transplanted American agitator / community organizer Luam Kidane (h/t ‘batb’). Warning: Severe nausea may ensue.
Just imagine for a moment if a right-wing conservative came up from America and started spouting such drivel. The Left in Canada would go absolutely apoplectic. And rightly so by the way. But because one of their own is saying such things, it’s all perfectly fine.

Continue reading →

Sometimes I feel guilty about the crushing debt our generation is passing on to the next. Then I come across a story like this. Whatever!
h/t RRR