David Shreck is a loathsome NDP hack who thought he was soooooo smart, he could marginalize BC’s Premier, Christy Clark, with a prudish little tweet about her appearance. Here’s what Shreck, using his supposedly catty wife as a shield, said was inappropriate:
The mainstream media was all over this ridiculously stupid story. Michael Smyth ripped the hide off of Shreck. So did Charles Adler.
Some Wise Words on Drug Rehabilitation
I’ve never met Gerry Verrier but when I posted a link to his recent editorial on Insite he graciously left a comment here on SDA. It’s well worth a read:
My how words travel quickly on the interwebs….Good discussion going on here.
My voice is but one of many who will share the same thoughts, if asked. I, as well as other co-workers attending a conference in Regina on addictions several years ago, were branded as anti-harm reduction because we challenged the thinking behind harm reduction. I just could not bear listening to a parole officer gush about how proud she was of a particular inmate who had a history of armed robberies and who during his last brief stint in the community, had robbed a store without using a gun and was back in prison. This was her example of how well harm reduction worked.
Of course if the research materials and papers being produced to advance Insite and other harm reduction projects are being produced by harm reductionists, does anyone really think they are going to interview me for my insight on the topic? Not likely.
I’ve been working in this field for almost 25 years. In this facilty we work with well over 350 people each year. Men, women, GBLT folks, retired folks, 18 year olds, youth, families, dependent children, men and women doing re-unification with children who have been apprehended would be the people you would see in our facilities. We work with clients who come from the street, who come from prison, who come from detox facilities, who come from remote communities in the north, who come from the military, basically people from all walks of life.
Having said that, I’d like to think I have good insight into the lifestyle and the treatment process.
Overwhelmingly, the three most important things identified by our clients in consumer based program surveys are routine, structure and sobriety. Following those three are having a safe environment, and having counsellors who have been through addictions themselves.
There is total value in investing in rehab. People in rehab are clean, going to school, working in the community and paying taxes and learning how to earn their way through the world, parenting their children, cleaning up the neighborhood, dealing with trauma, learning about the dangers of addictions and criminal thinking,improving their health through holisitc means, learning budgeting skills, developing solid life goals, and it goes on and on.
Going to Insite provides none of that.
As to coerced or mandated treatment, take a person who is resistant to change and immerse them in an environment where former addicts are engaged in programs and watch the shift in their attitude and thinking. When they see how their peers are engaged in doing positive things, and how non-threatening treatment can be, it can be incredibly catchy. We see it happen all the time.
Down with context
Get that little weirdo:
“(Danish filmmaker) Lars von Trier facing (French) charges for Hitler rant…”
“Danish police have charged Director Lars von Trier for comments he made about Hitler and Nazism…”
Good. It’s time to put a stop, once and for all, to all this ‘joking around’ crap. Politically incorrect quips, mischievous little provocations, winking jibes, black humour, Scandinavian deadpan, negative capability, irony – these things should be treated as criminal matters.
Let literal-mindedness reign.
Reader Tips
Take a Thanksgiving weekend trip down memory lane, as Charlie Chamberlain and Marg Osburne sing the opening theme from Don Messer’s Jubilee. Hey, mom, what’s for supper?
The comments are open for your Reader Tips.
And so it begins
After the disappointing conservative fail in Ontario, Sask drops the writ on Monday.
How are they going to become Canadians…
…or Americans–including immigrants’ progeny–when they are in constant contact with their home culture?
…The cheap, instant and often nearly constant communication made possible by the technology revolution has fundamentally altered the experience of moving away from home.
“Because telecommunications is everywhere and is so cheap, people never really leave their communities,” Mark Podlasly, founder of the Brookmere Management Group, a Vancouver consulting firm, told me. “You can leave but still have a 24/7 connection with your home community. People are never really gone. You can be a citizen anywhere.”..
And it isn’t just the Internet. See what’s at Rogers Cable:
…
Arabic (4)
Bangla (3)
Bengali (1)
Cantonese (6)
English (4)
German (2)
Greek (3)
Gujarati (1)
Hebrew (1)
Hindi (18)
Italian (2)
Japanese (1)
Korean (2)
Malayalam (1)
Mandarin (10)
News (1)
Polish (3)
Portuguese (3)
Punjabi (8)
Russian (6)
Spanish (9)
Tagalog (4)
Tamil (6)
Urdu (4)
Vietnamese (1)
And see the “Packs” and “Packages”.
A 1400 Year Old Hate
Big Risk of a Collapse Happening?
A quick look at these US, European Stoxx, German Dax, Spanish Ibex, Italian, Hong Kong charts below and decide for yourself. 2008 redux or…er, ahem… worse.
More than a few sharp cookies think if we get a washout here it will mark the end of a secular bear that really started in the late ‘90s and some think it will be a generational buying opportunity. Liquidate real estate in Canada while you can, pay down or refinance debt with exceptionally low interest rates and build a sum you can deploy when things get so extreme some stocks will sell for less than their net cash in the bank.
“With Manic Markets, it is crucial to evalue both long and short term charts and levels often. We wrote of the Squeeze set up three days ago. Once again, the markets bounced off the support levels, and fooled too many of the new “smart” shorts. Our long term scenario is intact, and we still believe the big dynamics on the downside will evolve later this autumn. There is a big risk of a Collapse happening, just when everybody is sucked into the long trade, and shorts have given up. For now, let’s review the short term charts, all hitting resistance levels”. Charts & Big Risk of a Collapse Happening HERE
(Ed Note: Latest comments including Oct 7th at the bottom of this post)
The Insite Decision: Views from a Former Junkie
The recent decision of the Supreme Court of Canada to keep Insite open is going to spread more misery all over Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. It’s now being revealed that the “studies” done to prove the value of Insite were flawed or even fixed. Can you say “Drug-gate”?
As we all know, the Leftist mind is impervious to any & all facts it disagrees with. It only accepts data that concurs with its Kumbaya worldview. But perhaps the words of a former drug addict will have some impact. Gerry Verrier guest wrote a stinging indictment of Insite on David Berner’s blog. Here are some snippets:
I am a former addict that will stand up and say that I do not support Insite or needle exchange programs. If there had been safe injection sites back in the 70s, I would be dead.
Providing for addicts to continue to be addicted is anti-social. Not expecting our addicted brothers and sisters to contribute to the betterment of our society and community is anti-social. Helping an addict stick a needle in his or her arm is anti social. Harm Reduction as it is applied to addiction is anti social.
Canadians Are Individuals, Not Identifiable Ethnic Groups
There are very few policies of the Left that have damaged our country more than the deliberate division of citizens into different ethnic groups. Such policies are also extremely racist … by definition.
Little Known Facts
All too infrequently recognized:
…Stephen Harper was re-elected on a platform that put him considerably to the left of Barack Obama and the voters of Ontario re-elected a man who would be called a Bolshevik by American Tea Partiers, if American Tea Partiers knew what a Bolshevik is…
Adriana Barton – Canadian Bigot
Adriana Barton is a far-left zealot who blogs for the Globe & Mail. Ms. Barton has never found a fact she couldn’t dismiss simply because she disagreed with it. What a great scientist she’d be!
In her latest hateful screed, she’s put on training wheels to get onto Heather Malice’s bicycle path of constant anger towards men and conservatives in general.
Charles Adler tears apart her insipid, clueless diatribe with great humour.
It would be most interesting to interview Ms. Barton about Climategate.
Reader Tips
With another NHL regular season now officially underway, this is a good time to watch the NFB’s classic little 1953 short film, featuring Jean Beliveau, called Here’s Hockey!.
The comments are open, as always, for your Reader Tips.
Down With Evil Corporations!
Herman Cain Bumper Sticker
Barack Obama’s Failed Presidency and the Resulting Anger of the Left
Be Brave! Be True! Be Conservative!
With a small “c” too. Publius has some advice for Ontario Progressive Conservatives (why does that oxymoron survive?):
…
The MSM has created the monster of Mike Harris, a crude caricature that has been successfully used to frighten the Ontario PCs back into their default Red Tory mode. They’ve been duped. The media is not the electorate, nor do they hold the same sway over the voters of this province as they once did. The internet has allowed voters more direct access to information and to candidates. The scare power of the MSM is greatly weakened…
The Ontario PCs have been playing a political game defined by their enemies. The Left is telling us what is and what is not too conservative. At such a game the Tories can never win. They are playing a game with loaded dice.
Rather than letting the Left define what the Right should be in Ontario, as well as in Canada as a whole, we should be defining that ourselves. The political middle is a constantly shifting target. A well timed and sold policy can shift that middle to either the Left or Right…
“Progressive” GDP Explained
It may be a surprise to you to see that it (government share of GDP) has gotten up to the same levels seen at the height of WWII.
The details at McClellan Financial Publications.
* disclosure: I subscribe to McClellan Financial Publications
You Poor Oppressed Americans…
…ground down by your false consciousness (many up here think similarly about Canadian society)–from the estimable George Will:
…
Many members of the liberal intelligentsia, that herd of independent minds, agree that other Americans comprise a malleable, hence vulnerable, herd whose “false consciousness” is imposed by corporate America. Therefore the herd needs kindly, paternal supervision by a cohort of protective herders. This means subordination of the bovine many to a regulatory government staffed by people drawn from the clever minority not manipulated into false consciousness.
Because such tutelary government must presume the public’s incompetence, it owes minimal deference to people’s preferences. These preferences are not really “theirs,” because the preferences derive from false, meaning imposed, consciousness. This convenient theory licenses the enlightened vanguard, the political class, to exercise maximum discretion in wielding the powers of the regulatory state…
The PC BBC, 2011 CE
We’ve got guests. Quick – hide our culture.
A recent memorandum sent out to BBC employees by the broadcaster’s religious and ethics department suggested that the use of the terms AD (Anno Domini) and BC (Before Christ) be replaced by BCE (before Common Era) and CE (Common Era) when referring to historical dates:
“As the BBC is committed to impartiality it is appropriate that we use terms that do not offend or alienate non-Christians.”
The new terms, of course, happen to use the exact same point of historical reference, as the Vatican points out:
The BBC has limited itself to changing only the description, rather than the computation of time, but in doing so, it cannot be denied that it has made a hypocritical gesture: the hypocrisy of those who pretend not to know why years began to be counted precisely from that moment.
Hmm. Hijri dates, anyone?