Hey, Akin – how did you manage to write this without using the word “ethanol”?
I Amuse Myself
Hey Shep,
In Canada “you’re either a sucker or a supplicant”
Richard Anderson, formerly known as Publius, on government-encouraged duff-sitting:
…
The argument that the welfare state in general, and the equalization in particular, are demonstrations of Canadians caring for other Canadians rings hollow. Refusing to recognize economy reality and sustaining people in economic nostalgia is not compassionate. It is a soft headed short-term view of the economic and social life of the nation. We’ll keep people happy today and not try to think about tomorrow. Heck, perhaps we’ll even given them some “job” training for jobs that will never return to this continent. All the while a near decade long labour shortage continues in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Taking the long view, which in this case is only a few years ahead, the sensible thing would be to move low skilled unemployed or underemployed workers in Central Canada to the West and East where they are needed. This is what would happen naturally in a free market. Even if we had only a modest welfare state, one which was financed by each province’s own fiscal resources, we would still see far greater inter-regional mobility. A broke province cannot afford to keep people on the dole indefinitely, unless richer regions of the country subsidize that behaviour.
Rather than promoting national unity transfers payments, both equalization and the health and social transfer, undermine it…
Your Moral And Intellectual Superiors
The most troubling trend in recent times has been a steady erosion of journalism’s integrity.
In particular, the latest example has been ABC’s lax ethics that visited devastation on a company with a thirty-year history of safe operation, Beef Products, Inc. The company pioneered the provision of lean, finely textured beef which is blended with fattier hamburger to make it more learn and nutritious. It also protects it against pathogens with a process that won the coveted 2007 “Black Pearl” award from the International Association for Food Protection.
ABC reporter Jim Avila, in hot pursuit of a journalism award, wrote a series of reports claiming that BPI was producing “pink slime” with the network hyping the term by using it 52 times in a two-week period in March. Any reporter investigating BPI would have swiftly found a mountain of evidence exonerating the company from any hint of the allegations made against it.
Avila’s reporting put BPI in jeopardy of closing down entirely, forcing the suspension of business at plants in Texas, Kansas, and Iowa, while the headquarters plant in Dakota Dunes, South Dakota, struggles to continue operations. So far 650 employees have lost their jobs with several thousand more jobs at risk at companies that relied on BPI, affecting their families and communities.
Are We Still A Member Of This Thing?
If so, why?
It’s Official: Genocidal Sudan Running Uncontested for U.N. Human Rights Council Seat
Is There Nothing That Obama Can’t Do?
Reflecting Warsaw’s long-standing anger over the 2009 cancellation of a controversial Bush-era anti-ballistic missile system President Bronislaw Komorowski said Poland should build its own missile shield to ensure national defence.
“Our mistake was that by accepting the American offer of a shield we failed to take into account the political risk associated with a change of president,” said Mr Komorowski in a magazine interview. “We paid a high political price. We do not want to make the same mistake again. We must have a missile system as an element of our defences.” . . .
Media Bias in America
UCLA Political Science & Economics Professor Tim Groseclose has just authored a new video from Prager University about media bias:
You can take the Political Quotient quiz he speaks of here. Its emphasis is clearly on U.S. politics but Canadians should be able to tackle most questions just as easily.
Those Moderate Muslims!
Thousands of Syrians are fleeing into neighboring Lebanon — not entirely due to fear of the Assad regime. The country’s minority Christian population is suffering under attacks waged by rebel troops. In the Beqaa Valley in eastern Lebanon, Christian families are finding temporary refuge, but they are still terrified. […]
Somehow, though, the interview was arranged in the end. Reserved and halting, the women described what happened to their husbands, brothers and nephews back in their hometown of Qusayr in Syria. They were killed by Syrian rebel fighters, the women said — murdered because they were Christians, people who in the eyes of radical Islamist freedom fighters have no place in the new Syria.
h/t Ralf
QOTW
Groups like the $PLC, the ADL and the now defunct Canadian Jewish Congress raking in multi-millions in donations to “monitor” idiots like this dumbfuck.
And… So what?
People are still dead.
Reader Tips
A lot of overtly conservative/right-wing country songs sound a bit like the über-patriotic joke-songs from Team America: World Police, and tonight’s Tips music selection arguably fits that bill too. It is kinda catchy, though, even if the anti-banker verse sounds like it was written in a well-armed cabin in the backcountry of Montana. Without further ado, here’s The New Patriots’ anthemic and unapologetically patriotic power-country thumper Pride, Faith, and Courage. (h/t)
The comments are open, as always, for your Reader Tips.
Not Waiting For The Asteroid
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But Glenn Beck Is The Crazy One
From the wildly objective Columbia Journalism Review…
Occasional advertising boycotts of Rush Limbaugh’s program notwithstanding, political talk radio has been wildly successful in recent years—in terms of both revenue and ratings. Of course, political talk radio generally means conservative political talk radio, especially since the demise of the liberal Air America network in 2010. The most popular political talkers, like Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck, are all conservative. So you might be inclined to think that political talk radio’s recent success reflects increasingly conservative values among the general public.
Is There Nothing That Obama Can’t Do?
From: Marlon Marshall, BarackObama.com [mailto:info@barackobama.com]
Sent: August-07-12 9:24 AM
Subject: I can’t believe I’m typing this
I’m so jealous of you that I can barely write the rest of this email.
Imagine shooting hoops with Carmelo Anthony, Patrick Ewing, Sheryl Swoopes, Kyrie Irving, and Alonzo Mourning. Oh, and President Obama and Michael Jordan will be there, too.
Now stop dreaming and make it happen. You and a guest of your choice could join President Obama and some of the greatest basketball stars for a special night at the Obama Classic.
Pitch in $3, and you’ll be automatically entered for a chance to win.
This latest fundraising plea via Rob K., who adds “when is the hot tub party with Joe Biden and his teamster buddies coming up?”
It’s Probably Nothing
Germany’s manufacturing industry is now in a rout. Output and new orders dove in July at a rate not seen since April 2009, the depth of the great recession. It was the 4th month in a row of lower production volumes, and the 13th months in a row (!) of declining new orders—a terror for future production. The overall PMI index crashed to the lowest level since June 2009. Exports were hardest hit, particularly to Western Europe, Asia, and the US, the three largest markets in the world! The decline in exports was steepest since May 2009. And there is talk of “job shedding.”
“Know”. There Is No “Think”.
A new poll reveals a large majority of Quebeckers think their government is corrupt.
Steyn’s Take on the London Olympics
Even those who detest Mark Steyn have to admit that he’s pretty darn hilarious. From his recent column on the 2012 Olympics comes this gem:
On the whole, the residents of that great city would rather the honor of hosting the world’s most disruptive sporting event had gone to some joint that needs the publicity more — Alma Ata, or Ouagadougou, or Oakland. In 21st-century London, traffic moves at fewer miles per hour than it did before the internal-combustion engine was invented without the added complication of fleets of Third World thug bureaucrats and the permanent floating crap game of transnationalist freeloaders being dumped on its medieval street plan. Nevertheless, having drawn the short straw of hosting the games, Londoners felt it a point of honor that the city be able to demonstrate the ability to ferry minor globalist hangers-on from their favorite whorehouse in Mayfair to the Olympic Village in the unfashionable East End in time for the quarter-finals of the flatwater taekwondo.
Your Moral And Intellectual Superiors
h/t Adrian
It’s Probably Nothing
Royal Dutch Shell is pulling some of its funds out of European banks over fears stirred by the euro zone’s mounting debt crisis…