Garth Wood;

Johnathan Ross: A nice post today. As one of the unfortunates who had to live through the NEP, allow me to try and expand a bit on why Albertans in particular are wary of Federal interference in Alberta’s constitutionally-protected resource base.
First, others here have said “they remember stories of suicides.” I don’t remember stories: I remember actual suicides. I knew people who lost their homes (some sold them for $1.00, others simply walked away), I knew couples that declared personal bankruptcy and whose marriages dissolved, and I remember standing in an unemployment line at the Edmonton Northwest UI office, as well as spending the better part of the next year looking for work. I never found any; instead, I went and applied for student loans and went back to post-secondary education (it was either that or starve). What I remember most is that none of the above tragedies were necessitated by some fundamental aspect of the existing economic milieu — they were all precipitated by the divine fiat of an arrogant, vainglorious fool of a Prime Minister with an astonishingly weak understanding of economics and the limits of government intervention. It’s little wonder that there are people out west who would like nothing better than the chance to urinate on PET’s final resting place.
I also remember the blinding speed with which the damage was done — from the announcement to the commencement of the meltdown of Alberta’s economy was only a matter of a few weeks. For some people, unemployment was almost instantaneous — I knew individuals who were terminated by the end of the week of the announcement, and I heard about others who were fired the very next day. Not that it helped their erstwhile employers survive; they too soon went under.
The NEP, for all the damage it did, is not the central issue, however. For many Albertans, the NEP simply represented the truth of the statement “The best guide to future behaviour is past behaviour.” This is almost infallible in areas like the psychology of marketing, and it’s a pretty good guide to other areas of life, too. The NEP represented the latest (and to date, the most profound and successful) attempt to economically rape the residents of Alberta for the benefit of Central Canada. In essence, people killed themselves because Trudeau wanted to deliver gasoline and heating oil to the residents of Ontario and Quebec for a few measly cents less per litre.
If they get the chance, what would the Liberals do next? “The best guide to future behaviour is past behaviour.” Unfortunately, this is a pretty good guide for how Albertans are likely to respond to another NEP-style meddling. Contrary to popular perceptions in Central Canada, most Albertans (and I include myself, a self-declared “reluctant separatist” in this) see themselves as more magnanimous and more patriotic than Centralers, and thus more willing to allow the Feds to interfere if it’s either “good for Canada” or if fighting the Feds would cause undue hardship and suffering for other Canadians, even those we perceive as being profoundly ungrateful for the massive (and per capita, massively disproportionate) economic contributions we’ve made to Confederation.
I have no idea whether this attitude of deference on the part of Albertans is changing, but I do know that we have long memories, and there’s an entire generation of people in Alberta who have much more power and sophistication than a quarter of a century ago (age and experience is actually good for something!). NEP II, in any form whatsoever, would be unlikely to pass muster in the same way that the original ultimately did.
And if you love Canada, that’s not a good thing.

We are often lectured at how those more enlightened Europeans are ahead of us on Kyoto. Partly, this is true, as they’ve engaged in more of those money sucking socialist schemes than we have so far, but the Suzuki types are constantly cajoling us to imitate them.
So, by their own evaluation, how is it working for them so far?
Well, let’s look at this Biodiesel initiative:

Continue reading →

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Illegal grog shops, huh. You know, pretty soon they’ll start making poitín and be transported for it.
Seriously though, the Tasmanians should be ashamed if they’re actually charging their mates for shed beer. That’s unAustralian.

You’ll have to click the link for a translation.

A baby dies in Mexico.

No safety vacuum is too small for the Nanny State crusaders to take up as a cause;

Until this month, or certainly until about the last decade, it would not have occurred to anyone that tobogganing was such a peril-strewn venture as to require special protective equipment, let alone that every one of the 6 million or so Canadians who might want to take the sled out for a spin should be compelled by law to buckle up. A search for “tobogganing and helmets” on Infomart’s vast database of Canadian publications turns up just one hit prior to 1990; 59 hits from 1990 to 1999, and 98 since then.

But if the life of just one child is saved!
Related – “Say you’re a single doctor; you get to know your patient; and through the patient, you get to know the patient’s sister, whom you find yourself romantically interested in. Can you ask her out (either while you’re seeing the patient, or for two years afterwards)?”

It’s not the first time I’ve said it, but it bears repeating – the time has come to institute dedicated drunk driving lanes.

It’s hard to imagine what China will be like when there are four men to every three women.

Bob Wood;

The following figures were taken from the Canadian Dairy Commission website dated in 2006:
Provincial Shares of Milk Share Quotas (MSQ) for Industrial Milk
Province / Percentage
Nfld & Labrador 0.3
PEI 1.8
Nova Scotia 1.1
New Brunswick 1.2
Quebec 46.5
Ontario 31.2
Manitoba 3.6
Saskatchewan 2.6
Alberta 6.3
British Columbia 5.5

So I finished writing this in time to catch Steve Doocy on Fox & Friends ask a pair of Colorado farmers, whose cattle are stranded in the snow: “So has anybody out there applied for a FEMA trailer yet? Getting any $2,000 cash cards…?” to the hearty laughter of his interviewees.

The end of genealogy…

Customer: (pause) Greek Feta?*
Owner: Uh, not as such.
Customer: Uuh, Gorgonzola?
Owner: No.
Customer: Parmesan,
Owner: No.
Customer: Mozarella,
Owner: No.
Customer: Paper Cramer,
Owner: No.
Customer: Danish Bimbo,
Owner: No.
Customer: Czech sheep’s milk,
Owner: No.
Customer: Venezuelan Beaver Cheese?
Owner: Not *today*, sir, no.
Customer: (pause) Aah, how about Cheddar?

No.

Dilemma…

How high can you score?
(h/t reader Leslie)

Darcey responds to the latest brainwave to emanate from the Gated Community Community;

Note to self: If ever given the opportunity, don’t walk around Vancouver Island at night unless your wearing a Christmas tree.

The same prairie grain farmers who are not told by the CWB what their grain is actually sold for can relax in the knowledge that they at least know the exact amount of a fat bonus for Wheat Board employees this week;

OTTAWA — The Canadian Wheat Board is handing out $1,000 Christmas bonuses to its 500 employees in recognition of the “stress” and “strain” they have been under during the Winnipeg-based agency’s fight with the Harper government.
The special payout was announced to staff Thursday morning by board chairman Ken Ritter and newly minted president Greg Arason, who was appointed to the position Tuesday by Agriculture Minister Chuck Strahl.
However, the bonus is not only raising concern among farmers, but also among CWB employees who are wondering whether it is “hush money” designed to buy their silence in what has become a pitched political battle over the future of the world’s largest marketer of wheat.
“The whole thing was really quite surreal,” one employee said of the announcement in the cafeteria of the wheat board’s Winnipeg offices. “One moment we are locked in a battle with the government, and 24 hours after our very popular president (Adrian Measner) is fired, we are told we are getting $1,000 bonuses. Is this hush money? Am I supposed to abide by a new president’s rules, which are contrary to what this company has always been about?”

Or is it hush money from the board? Them’s the folks that approved the payment. If you want surreal, check out this quote from Manitoba director, Bill Toews;

“If farmers are concerned about what we did (authorizing the bonuses), they will have to place that responsibility on Mr. Strahl, not the board.”

Oddly enough, there seems to be no mention of this $500,000 expenditure at the CWB website. One would think that an announcement applauding “the generosity and gratitude of western grain farmers” would be front and center!
More – A commentor at Agri-ville;

Is this for real??
I hope this was a early April fools Day joke!! Wake up all you CWB supporters!!
I just got my final payment today for LAST YEARS CROP (could you imagine if you sold Canola and got paid for it a year later), anyway I got a final payment on my #3hrsw for $1351.19, and on a thirteen hundred dollar cheque I had $50 deduction for Wheat & Barley Research, and a $30 adminstration charge.

And he still doesn’t know what his wheat sold for.
Good catch by commentor “Charles” –

One employee said, “Am I supposed to abide by a new president’s rules, which are contrary to what this company has always been about?”
If non government employees said this to a reporter, they would be fired before the next day,of course you abide by your president’s rules thats what presidents are there for.

This didn’t take long. Elizabeth May gets a taste of the left’s famed appreciation for nuance;

As you know I was very supportive of your running as leader of the Green Party and despite my differences with some of the platform of the Party I have up until now felt that your presence added a great deal to the federal political scene. But now you have questioned the most important victory of the women’s movement of my generation.
If you had said that you personally oppose abortion but you support a woman’s right to choose, I would have been fine with that. Instead you said that a woman’s right to choose, something tens of thousands of Canadian women fought for for decades, was trivializing an important issue. It felt like a slap in the face.
Since you have so little respect for me or for the women’s movement which mobilized for so long to win this hard-earned right, I hope you will understand that I ripped up the cheque I had written to the Green Party and you can no longer rely on me for support.
There is no middle ground on the abortion issue as you are no doubt finding out. The organized opposition to abortion in this country as in the United States does not care if women die. Of course, there are many people who are opposed to abortion for religious reasons but here I am talking about the anti-choice activists.

More at Big Blue Wave
Dec.22 Update – May responds. I don’t think she’ll be getting that cheque. The usual suspects lose their ever-tolerant minds over “the yucky theology”.

SaskPower

… is the third largest producer of greenhouse gases. So, while Dion speculates aloud about taxing oil, gas and coal what will he do about a Crown Corp? How do you tax a province? Transfer-payments? Income tax?

Related: Here’s Alberta’s response;

Backbencher MLA Ted Morton, who finished third in the recent Tory leadership race, is the new minister of sustainable resource development.

Update: reader Bart F. clarifies in the comments;

Sustainable resource development is more about trees and fish etc. than oil and gas.
Mel Knight, new energy minister would be a key guy if Beaker et al attempt a resource raid. A low keyed but solid biography. Likely more than able to rip a strip off Beaker:

Isn’t Islamic jihad, or global warming climate change, or RCMP investigators infiltrating mail servers looking for photos you took of your grandson in the bathtub.
It’s the never-ending quest by bureaucrats and university academics to devise new means to justify their own continued employment;

Oversize clothes should have obesity helpline numbers sewn on them to try and reduce Britain’s fat crisis, a leading professor said today.
[…]
Prof Sattar is calling for more political intervention.
He and his colleagues say food manufacturers should also display energy content of all meals and snacks at retail and catering outlets.
The saturated fat content of all ready meals and snacks should also be clearly labelled.
New urban roads should only be built if they have safe cycle lanes and new housing complexes should be constructed only if they have sports facilities and green park areas, he says.
He also wants to see adviceline numbers attached to all clothes sold with waists above 102 cm for men, 94 cm for boys, 88 cm or size 16 for women and 80 cm for girls.
Such measures would affect comedian Dawn French who runs her own clothes shop Sixteen 47, catering for women up to a size 47.
Prof Sattar also wants ads for slimming services without independent evaluation banned, TV ads for sweets and snacks stopped before 9 pm, higher tax on high fat and high sugar foods and tax breaks for genuine corporate social responsibility.
In this week’s British Medical Journal, Prof Sattar says education should be provided at all levels to change behaviour towards diet and physical activity, and obesity made a core part of all medical training.
“People clearly have some responsibility for their health, but society and government have a responsibility to make the preferred, easy choices healthier ones,” he said.

It’s a crisis, they tell us.
Or is it? (link fixed)
One thing is certain – now that the Great War On Smoking is drawing to a close, the day that retailers will be legislated into hiding candy behind shower curtains may be closer than you think.

Exhibit A

Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces, which replaced the military that existed before the Cuban Revolution, traces its roots to Dec. 2, 1956, when 82 rebels landed on the island on a yacht — the Granma — that sailed from Mexico.
The Castro brothers were among fewer than two dozen rebels who survived the landing to reach the mountains, where they launched a guerrilla war against then-president Fulgencio Batista. Their revolution triumphed on Jan. 1, 1959.
Fidel Castro purportedly sent a message to those celebrating his birthday earlier this week, telling a crowd of 5,000 supporters at the opening event Tuesday at a Havana theatre that he was too sick to meet with them.
“I direct myself to you, intellectuals and prestigious personalities of the world, with a dilemma,” said a note read at the event. “I could not meet with you in a small locale, only in the Karl Marx Theater where all the visitors would fit, and I was not yet in condition, according to the doctors, to face such a colossal encounter.”
More than 1,300 politicians, artists and intellectuals from around the globe were attending the tribute to the man who has governed Cuba for 47 years, including Bolivian President Evo Morales, Haitian President Rene Preval and Colombian Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Noticably absent: any mention of repression, disappearances, political prisoners, jailed journalists, the shattered economy of Cuba.
Exhibit B

He had been taken to a military hospital in Santiago early Sunday after suffering an “acute heart attack” and a buildup of fluid on his lungs, his son, Marco Antonio Pinochet, told reporters.
“We are now in the hands of God and of the doctors. My father is in very bad condition,” Marco Antonio Pinochet, said earlier.
He said that doctors “virtually rescued” his father from death by performing an angioplasty to clear his arteries.
Pinochet has used a pacemaker for several years and was diagnosed with mild dementia caused by several strokes. He also suffers from diabetes and arthritis.
In the past, he has been deemed too ill to stand trial on charges of murder and kidnapping.
Last week, he was indicted and ordered to remain under house arrest for the execution of two bodyguards of Salvador Allende, the freely elected socialist president who was toppled in a 1973 coup that brought Pinochet to power.
Around 3,000 people were reported missing or killed and some 28,000 were tortured during Pinochet’s rule in Chile, which lasted until 1990, when Pinochet transferred power to a democratically elected president.
He marked his birthday last week by issuing a statement in which he accepted “political responsibility” for abuses committed by his regime.

The Washington Post has noticed the Dictator’s Double Standard;

Like it or not, Mr. Pinochet had something to do with this success. To the dismay of every economic minister in Latin America, he introduced the free-market policies that produced the Chilean economic miracle — and that not even Allende’s socialist successors have dared reverse. He also accepted a transition to democracy, stepping down peacefully in 1990 after losing a referendum.
By way of contrast, Fidel Castro — Mr. Pinochet’s nemesis and a hero to many in Latin America and beyond — will leave behind an economically ruined and freedomless country with his approaching death. Mr. Castro also killed and exiled thousands. But even when it became obvious that his communist economic system had impoverished his country, he refused to abandon that system: He spent the last years of his rule reversing a partial liberalization. To the end he also imprisoned or persecuted anyone who suggested Cubans could benefit from freedom of speech or the right to vote.
The contrast between Cuba and Chile more than 30 years after Mr. Pinochet’s coup is a reminder of a famous essay written by Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, the provocative and energetic scholar and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who died Thursday. In “Dictatorships and Double Standards,” a work that caught the eye of President Ronald Reagan, Ms. Kirkpatrick argued that right-wing dictators such as Mr. Pinochet were ultimately less malign than communist rulers, in part because their regimes were more likely to pave the way for liberal democracies. She, too, was vilified by the left. Yet by now it should be obvious: She was right.