This is going to amaze you.
H/T Bill at INDC.

Something tells me this isn’t an isolated case.

Fox Broadcasting’s “Renovate My Family” promised them a new and improved home designed to accommodate their recently paralyzed son, Steven. Instead of a handicapped-friendly home that made their life easier, they got a shoddy wreck of a house that latest estimates say will cost $350,000 to fix, the Rosiers’ attorney, Mark Belongia, said.
‘Essentially what they did is build a movie set,’ Belongia said.
Wiring remains exposed; door knobs are round, impossible for Steven to grasp; a dryer is vented into the home rather than out of it; smoke detectors don’t work; plywood covers basement windows; siding and plumbing was improperly installed; the furnace has no foundation and is stuffed in a crawl space and sod was installed directly over limestone paving, Belongia said.

Adding injury to injury, someone made off with $13,000 of the homeowner’s tools.
h/t Wizbang.

New Stats Can crime statistics are out.

Among cities, Regina was Canada’s murder capital, with a rate of five per 100,000. Montreal, by contrast, had the country’s lowest rate of 1.7 and Toronto had 1.8.
Nationally, violent crime fell two per cent, with 300,000 incidents reported to police, most of them common assaults. The number of robberies also fell four per cent.
Regionally, the three territories were by far the most violent areas of the country, while Saskatchewan and Manitoba led the way provincially.

Violent crime rates by province/territory (per 100,000 population) Nunavut: 7,884 Northwest Territories: 6,865 Yukon: 3,236 Saskatchewan: 2,006 Manitoba: 1,602 British Columbia: 1,195 Nova Scotia: 1,190 Alberta: 1,087 Canada (average): 946 New Brunswick: 937 Newfoundland and Labrador: 917 Prince Edward Island: 799 Ontario: 755 Quebec: 726

Top 10 murder rates by city (per 100,000 population): Regina: 5.0 Winnipeg: 4.9 Abbotsford, B.C.: 4.4 Edmonton: 3.4 Saskatoon: 3.3 Vancouver: 2.6 Halifax: 2.4 Calgary: 1.9 Toronto: 1.8 Montreal: 1.7

I’m not generally a fan of reality TV (I’ve never seen an episode of Survivor or The Apprentice), but I did catch Brat Camp last night.
It was fascinating stuff, despite the bawling teenage drama queens. One thing I did notice right away – nearly all the parents of these “out of control” (spoiled rotten) teens were well into their late forties or fifties. With Stats Can reporting that the average first time mother is now over thirty years old, one wonders if the combination of affluence, fewer (or no) siblings, and the “maturity” that one gains with age and experience (read: too much exposure to child rearing experts on afternoon tv) may not prove to be a recipe for indulgence.
It’s going to be interesting to watch these brats – and brat is the word for them – deal with the 40 or more days of winter survival camp before them. (They can earn their release after 40 days, but not before. Some students have spent as long as 3 months.) It will be equally interesting to watch the reactions of the bleeding hearts and child psychologistas over the coming weeks.

A couple of years ago I caught a mention that China was full of “empty office buildings” – due to rampant speculation that was racing far ahead of the economy. I have no idea if it was accurate – it’s just that I was reminded of it by this;

A sudden and mysterious drop in China’s oil consumption helped to push down the International Energy Agency’s estimate on Wednesday of global demand for this year.
After growing 11 percent in 2003 and 15.4 percent last year, China’s overall oil use declined 1 percent in the second quarter from the comparable quarter a year earlier, the agency said.
The drop is the latest in a series of unclear and often conflicting indications about whether the Chinese economy is still growing strongly. Top officials of the agency said in interviews they believed that the decline was temporary and that they expected Chinese demand to rebound in the second half of the year, but added that world oil prices could take a heavy blow if Chinese use did not increase.

Curious.

Some days, you’re the chalk.

I drove through areas like this last week on the way to South Dakota – and three weeks before that when we were in Minneapolis. It has been raining, and raining and raining. And it still is. There are thousands of square miles of farmland in Manitoba, the Dakotas and Minnesota under water, and it has nowhere to go.
A few years ago when a late spring snowstorm caused the “Great Manitoba Flood” that threatened Winnipeg and devastated Grand Forks, ND (where several downtown buildings burned after being inundated with flood waters) – I explained to others that to understand why the Red River “Valley” is so prone to flooding, one needs only to do this simple experiment:
a) Place a cookie sheet on a table.
b) pour a quart of water on it.

The reviews are coming in for Mark Helprin’s first new novel in ten years – “Freddy and Fredericka” and they’re very, very good. This one from Joseph Bottum;

There is a peculiar rule of literature that the most brutal satires seem to be written by conservatives, or at least out of a conservative impulse. Think of Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” or Evelyn Waugh’s “Vile Bodies,” or Kingsley Amis’s “Lucky Jim” or Tom Sharpe’s “The Throwback.” With his lyrical prose and epic imagination in such books as “Winter’s Tale,” “A Soldier of the Great War,” “Memoir From Antproof Case” and last year’s “The Pacific and Other Stories,” Mr. Helprin has proved himself a major fiction writer — and perhaps the only one of his generation it is plausible to call a genuine conservative.
But for all that, “Freddy and Fredericka” is far from brutal. Mr. Helprin’s first full novel in a decade, it is, in the end, a rather sweet book about kings and queens and why human beings might sometimes need them. About America, as well, and why human beings might sometimes need it, too.

Emily Carter for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune;

As a wordsmith and a stylist, Helprin is perhaps unmatched in his easeful way with his mother tongue in all its manifestations. He has used his voice well here, but more importantly his ear. From the frilly Victorian embedded clauses of Henry James to the whimsical characterization of Tom Robbins and other “zany” North American writers, Helprin swerves effortlessly through the ages of English literature to create a world at once completely artificial and utterly believable within its well-set parameters.

I think it’s time to kick start my Amazon wish list.

When they say that you’re never too old to learn, it’s true. For example, yesterday I learned why it’s a bad idea to serve red wine at weddings.

A belated happy Dominion Day to everyone.

Why couldn’t I get results like this back when I was in school? Oh, yeah, I was drunk most of the time. Whoops.

Your IQ Is 135

Your Logical Intelligence is Exceptional Your Verbal Intelligence is Genius Your Mathematical Intelligence is Genius Your General Knowledge is Genius

h/t Andrew

Greetings, I’m R, and I’ll be your host tonight. Kate asked me to keep you entertained while she’s in the custody of liberating democrary-bringers from the South or something.
But I disgress…

Being a proud member of Old Europe, I feel a tad strongly about the quality of beer. One of the greatest advantages of Old Europe is that something worth being called beer actually exists. While not new to the concept of piss in bottles (mostly originating from Belgium, Mexico or Japan), I was totally unprepared for this.
I mean, really. It was… indescribable. I’d rather scour my mouth with a used toilet brush from a heavily frequented public toilet in the South of France than ever having to drink any Canadian beer (did I just call this crap beer? Sorry for the confusion…) again.
So that’s it for today. I’ll think I’ll just grab a bottle of Bier and enjoy the show.
Laterz, dahlins…

Mmmmmm…donuts.

Lisa at London Fog tagged me.
Number of Books – Not that many, actually. I have limited space, so tend to move out anything I don’t intend to read twice. The only ones I keep are a few favourites (around 10) and my dog breeding reference books, breed magazines (back into the 1960’s), etc. There are quite a few of those, and they’re relatively rare, so they get priority.
Last Book Purchased – Carnage And Culture – The Western Way of War by Victor Davis Hanson. There’s an interview here.
Last Book I Read – Ghost Soldiers by Hampton Sides
Five Books that mean a lot to me:

The University of Western Ontario Alumni and Friends are protesting plans to grant Henry Morgentaler an honourary Doctor of Laws. They have an online petition if you’re interested in checking it out.

Yeah, you might be a redneck.

Does anyone out there know how to code one of these with a different photo?
I have such a k3wl idea….

Does anyone know of a “forum communication” or the name “simard” in connection with the Brault or other sponsorship testimony?
Just checking out something that probably means nothing at all, but I’d be interested in feedback, if any.

Tarantino:

Apparently, 15,000 people rallied in Ottawa yesterday to voice their opposition to same-sex marriage. As of 7:46pm on Sunday evening, as near as I can tell, neither the Toronto Star nor the Globe and Mail have reported one. single. word. about them. In fifty words or less, compare and contrast with the breathless, drooling coverage afforded by both outlets to protests involving equal or smaller numbers of people when the subject of the protest is, oh, to pick one random example, opposition to the war to liberate Iraq.

Emulating the New York Times. May their circulation figures be equally rewarded.

American Thinker reports the “EU official who whitewashed Palestinain funding report” is on the shortlist for new UN auditor.

The Auditor General Reports on National Security in Canada. It’s long – grab a coffee. You’ll be hearing brief versions of her criticisms via mainstream media soon enough (if not already).
Update
A reader who wishes to remain anonymous writes:

More important to keep Canadians in the dark than protect them. Top experienced investigators got canned when they finally went public because nothing was done. They did it for the public good […] whistleblowers who were trying to protect Canadians and lost their careers.
How many have been hired with that $8 billion in security?
link to hearing evidence)
The Auditor General highlighted in the 2001 report that, “A weak immigration service is putting Canada in danger because it isn’t weeding out applicants presenting criminal, security, or health risks”. Last year, a high-ranking Canadian diplomat based in China left his post suddenly after he was suspected of accepting bribes to help Chinese nationals enter Canada illegally. He is thought to have made well over $1 million before he bolted a few days before his posting expired.
The government continues to play down the problems and serious security implications. It destroys and sees as a threat anyone who tells the truth. Both RCMP Corporal Read and I have experienced this. So too have two CSIS officers whose careers were also destroyed working on the Sidewinder project, which examined Chinese espionage activities in Canada in alliance with the triads….

Type “Sidewinder” into the Insightmag search engine.