Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
November 7, 2009 –Toronto Humane Society wants rodeo banned – Officials argue it is unethical and inhumane
November 28, 2009 – An inside look at the Toronto Humane Society revealed a place where neglected animals lived and died in terrible pain and feral cats roamed free in the basement and between walls, one dying a slow death in a trap.

Big Government;

Interestingly, the local head ACORN organizer in California, David Lagstein was caught on tape earlier this month speaking to an East County Democratic Club.
Mr. Lagstein stated: “…the attorney general is a political animal, but certainly every bit of the communication we have had with them has suggested that the fault will be found with the people that did the video and not the people with ACORN.”
Continuing, Mr. Lagstein stated: “…we are fully cooperating, some of the investigators visited our office this morning and I think they really understand what’s going on.”
Shockingly, we now learn that the ACORN office in National City (San Diego County) engaged in a massive document dump on the evening of October 9th, containing thousands upon thousands of sensitive documents, just days prior to the Attorney General’s visit.

Christie Blatchford;

He was arrested “to prevent further breach of the peace,” Mr. Feliciant said.
Mr. Brown spent the night in jail and was released without charges in the morning.
Not mentioned was the fact that the natives were there illegally, were illegally blocking a public road, illegally demanding the couple present native-issued “passports,” illegally imposing a curfew, illegally turning Mr. Brown away from his own home.

…and a Caledonia blast from the past.

Is there nothing that Obama can’t do?

The President said that he didn’t think the question over the appropriateness of possible jail time [for Americans who refuse to buy health insurance] is the “biggest question” the House and Senate are facing right now.

Via email;

Listening to Bill Good on CKNW this morning a gentleman called to report that he was refused entry into a polling station (National By-Election) somewhere in the New Westminster – Coquitlam (nee NDP Dawn Black) riding this morning because he was wearing a Poppy! Apparently others had been turned away. Seems the Poppy was construed as a symbol of party affiliation and broadcasted how you were expected to vote?!?
I’m waiting for the story to pick-up some speed.
Are we seeing the repeat of the New Brunswick Principal – National Anthem story again?

Think you can get that, given today’s news?

So routine now, one can hardly keep track;

After 30 years, five presidents and $13 billion dollars, the Obama administration is pulling the plug on Yucca Mountain, the federal government’s proposed storage facility for America’s nuclear waste.
For a candidate who said he wanted to get politics out of science, critics find the president’s decision hypocritical and shortsighted, at a time when nuclear energy is making a comeback.
[…]
Many in Congress are also angry with Obama’s decision to close Yucca Mountain. “Many a utility facility across the country is going to have to close down if we don’t get a handle on it because waste is piling up in those communities with reactors,” said Rep. Jerry Lewis, (R-Calif). Lawmakers like Lewis and Sen. John McCain say with no long term repository for America’s nuclear waste, the re-licensing of existing plants and construction of new ones is in jeopardy, just as the nation reconsiders nuclear energy as a clean and dependable source of electricity.
In the meantime, the nation’s utilities have asked the federal government to suspend the nuclear waste disposal tax — now running about $750 million a year — and may want a refund for the money already spent on the now failed yucca facility. So far, officials representing the department of energy have said no.

You know, I’ve long thought that nuclear waste storage was a perfect fit for Saskatchewan. Not only could we generate billions in revenue, it’d prompt the science-averse NDP vote to relocate amongst their brethern in BC.

Where the foxes caper unmolested, the government packs your school lunch, and King and Country slip beneath the socialist waves.

Accounts of western governments (from the local to the federal) kneecapping the very infrastructure upon which modern metropolitan life depends – including reliable electricity, food production, and the transport of essential goods – are so routine now, one can hardly keep track;

On October 31, 2009, the once largest aluminum plant in the world will shut down. With it goes another American industry and more American jobs. The Columbia Falls Aluminum Company in Montana will shut down its aluminum production because it cannot purchase the necessary electrical power to continue its operations.
[…]
In the year 2000, America planned 150 new coal-electric power plants. These power plants would have been “clean” by real standards but the Greens managed to have carbon dioxide defined legally as “dirty” and this new definition makes all emitters of carbon dioxide, including you, a threat to the planet. Therefore, using legal illogic, the Sierra Club stopped 82 of these planned power plants under Bush II and they expect it will be a slam-dunk to stop the rest under Obama.
And now you know the real reason the Columbia Falls Aluminum Company had to shut down. America stopped building new power plants a long time ago. There is now no other source where the company can buy energy. Our energy-producing capability is in a decline and it is taking America with it.

h/t Fred
But I repeat myself.

Why didn’t they think of this earlier? – Starting Sunday, cash-strapped California will dig deeper into the pocketbooks of wage earners — holding back 10% more than it already does in state income taxes just as the biggest shopping season of the year kicks into gear. […] Think of it as a forced, interest-free loan: You’ll be repaid any extra withholding in April.”
William Voegeli;

America’s federal system allows, at the state level, for 50 different clubs to join. At first glance, the states seem to differ between those that bundle numerous high-quality public benefits with high taxes and those that offer packages of low benefits and low taxes. These alternatives, of course, define the basic argument between liberals and conservatives over the ideal size and scope of government. Except for Oregon, John McCain carried every one of the 17 states with the lowest tax levels in the 2008 presidential election, while Barack Obama won every one of the 17 at the top of the list except for Wyoming and Alaska.
It’s not surprising, then, that an intense debate rages over which model is more satisfactory and sustainable. What is surprising is the growing evidence that the low-benefit, low-tax alternative succeeds not only on its own terms but also according to the criteria used by defenders of high benefits and high taxes. Whatever theoretical claims are made for imposing high taxes to provide generous government benefits, the practical reality is that these public goods are, increasingly, neither public nor good: their beneficiaries are mostly the service providers themselves, and their quality is poor. For evidence, look to the two largest states in the nation, which are fine representatives of the liberal and conservative alternatives.

Related: “Boeing Heads South For Better Business Climate: Washington State Politicians Are Surprised?”

We urge all citizens to remain calm during this period of severe vaccine shortage.
Please continue to exercise, avoid sugar, trans-fats, exposure to second hand smoke, caffeine, alcohol; wear your seatbelt, wear your helmet, wear your sunblock, wear your mittens; check your blood pressure, check your turkey roasting guidelines, check your playground equipment, check your winter emergency travel kit, check your perfume at the office door.
Expectant mothers, the elderly and very young are asked to be particularly diligent during the current outbreak.
Please continue to work hard, pay your taxes, and await further instructions re: clinics in your area until the vaccination period for the high risk priority crack whore and criminal communities is complete..
Thank you.
Related – “Detainees at JTF Guantanamo are considered to be at higher risk and therefore they will be offered the H1N1 vaccination.”

Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
August 2003 – [In] August 1993, when Congress passed Clinton’s Vaccines for Children program. The plan, promoted by the Children’s Defense Fund, was to use federal power to ensure universal immunization. So the government agreed to purchase a third of the national vaccine supply (the President and Mrs. Clinton had pushed for 100 percent) at a forced discount of half price, then distribute it to doctors to deliver to the poor and the un- and under-insured. As a result: Where 30 years ago, 25 companies produced vaccines for the U.S. market., today only five remain, and there is only one producer for a number of critical shots. Recent years have brought shortages of numerous vaccines, including those for whooping cough, diphtheria and chicken pox.
October 2009 – Where is the H1N1 vaccine manufactured? There were four manufacturers’ products approved for use by the US FDA and CDC:Melbourne-based CSL Ltd.; Novartis AG based in Basel, Switzerland; Sanofi Pasteur of Sanofi-Aventis SA, based in Paris; and MedImmune, LLC, the Maryland US based Subsidiary of London’s AstraZeneca.

Beware the UN’s Copenhagen plot

[T]here are 181 pages that make up the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change dated September 15, 2009: a rough draft of what could be signed in Copenhagen. And yet, not one member of the media or political class has bothered to inform us about its contents as an important clue to what may happen in Copenhagen. The shame of that state of affairs started to trickle in last week.
Emails started arriving telling me about a speech given by Christopher Monckton, a former adviser to Margaret Thatcher, at Bethel University in St Paul, Minnesota, on October 14. Monckton talked about something that no one has talked about in the lead-up to Copenhagen: the text of the draft Copenhagen treaty.
[…]
So I read the draft treaty. The word government appears on page 18. Monckton says: “This is the first time I’ve ever seen any transnational treaty referring to a new body to be set up under that treaty as a government. But it’s the powers that are going to be given to this entirely unelected government that are so frightening.”
Monckton became aware of the extraordinary powers to be vested in this new world government only when a friend of his found an obscure UN website and hacked his way through several layers of complications before coming across a document that isn’t even called the draft treaty. It’s called a “note by the secretariat”. The moment he saw it, he went public and said: “Look, this is an outrage … they have kept the sheer scope of this treaty quiet.”
Monckton says the aim of this new government is to have power to directly intervene in the financial, economic, tax and environmental affairs of all the nations that sign the Copenhagen treaty.

You can hear Monckton speak to the ramifications of this treaty on Youtube.
Anthony Watts has highlighted other passages, among them;

17. [[Developed [and developing] countries] [Developed and developing country Parties] [All Parties] [shall] [should]:]
(a) Compensate for damage to the LDCs’ economy and also compensate for lost opportunities, resources, lives, land and dignity, as many will become environmental refugees;
(b) Africa, in the context of environmental justice, should be equitably compensated for environmental, social and economic losses arising from the implementation of response measures.

The full text of the Copenhagen Climate Change Treaty Draft (pdf) for your weekend reading pleasure.
You might call up your MP’s, and ask if they’ve read it.
Update – Youtube is up with Monckton on Glenn Beck today 6 part series

There are 1,100 vaccination clinics open in Alberta today.
Manitoba opened to the general public yesterday. Pharmacists can give the vaccine.
And in Saskatchewan?
Nope. Allowing anyone even a sniff of vaccine outside of the Official Health Care System would be “two-tier” health care. So if you want a vaccination for H1N1, you have another two week wait before the vaccine is “released” to the general public. And in Saskatoon, they’re going to have everyone – which will include many who are incubating and infectious – congregate at a single site Prairieland Park) to receive it.
Beauty.
Also, every province is giving the seasonal flu shot at the same time – except Saskatchewan. (You see, our superiors in SaskHealth make these decisions for us.) I’ve also been told via the grapevine that flu shot recipients may have to watch a video first. If true, I would suggest this historic image for the opening frame.

Think of it as your union bonus.
Via John Gormley Live, where you can listen live if you click now.

Blaming the failed auto industry is easy;

On the auction block in Detroit: almost 9,000 homes and lots in various states of abandonment and decay from the tidy owner-occupied to the burned-out shell claimed by squatters.
Taken together, the properties seized by tax collectors for arrears and put up for sale last week represented an area the size of New York’s Central Park. Total vacant land in Detroit now occupies an area almost the size of Boston, according to a Detroit Free Press estimate.
The tax foreclosure auction by Wayne County authorities also stood as one of the most ambitious one-stop attempts to sell off urban property since the real-estate market collapse. Despite a minimum bid of $500, less than a fifth of the Detroit land was sold after four days. The unsold parcels add to an expanding ghost town within the once-vibrant town known worldwide as the Motor City.

But you know, lots of cities manage to function without an auto industry.

Many potential homeowners that Detroit desperately needs said they felt penalized by the auction process. They mostly found themselves outbid by deeper-pocketed investors from California and New York who were in a race to claim the auction book’s relatively few livable properties. Dozens of potential bidders, mostly local residents, were turned away on the first day of the auction by deputies after they failed to meet the morning deadline for registration.
[…]
Schumack, who runs a community garden near her home that employs 14 neighborhood children, said she had been battling through a maze of bureaucracy for years to try to buy an abandoned lot nearby to expand and plant fruit trees. She learned the lot had been taken back from its previous owner — an absentee investor with more than 100 abandoned lots in Brightmoor — only because of her constant calls to city and county officials, she said.
When officials told her she would have to wait for a fourth day to bid on the property, Schumack broke down into tears.

How come nobody ever notices that?
h/t Ed S.

It’s official: Federal inmates now have more rights than truck drivers.

Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
WSJ – Obama’s “Special Master for Compensation” orders 90% salary cut for execs at bailed out firms.
AP – Obama “to shift the massive bailout fund’s focus away from helping big financial institutions and toward homeowners and small businesses.”
More links at Drudgereport